


Deja Vu All Over Again

by SBG



Category: NCIS, Supernatural
Genre: Drama, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-30
Updated: 2011-12-09
Packaged: 2017-10-26 00:46:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 29,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/276702
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SBG/pseuds/SBG
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony DiNozzo is in an eerily familiar situation, and his fate is yet again in the hands of two felons who have died multiple times, on paper and in reality, since he last saw them. And one of them terrifies him more than the monster who has him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> _A/N: Annual SPN Halloween fic took a bit of a turn on me this year, straight into an NCIS crossover. This does reference previous crossover of mine, Out for Blood, so reading that would be helpful. Also, I just started this last week, I'm pokey, and so it's not 100% finished yet. I wanted to get the beginning posted before All Hallow's Eve, though! Maybe it'll spur me to hurry up and finish.  
> _

Some things couldn't be forgotten. So much had happened between then and now, and truthfully, NCIS Special Agent Tony DiNozzo had spent a lot of time trying to not think about it, reshaping it in his brain until it was a more palatable memory the same way he sometimes romanticized nearly dying from plague. As he almost lost his balance while skidding to a stop in the middle of a dark, damp alley, his memories took over. Suddenly, it seemed as if it had happened only yesterday and it was _crystal_. The cage, the too-sharp incisors, the blood and torture. He heard McGee huffing and puffing toward him from about a mile and a half away, skinnier than he'd been four years ago but still uncomfortable running in dress shoes. Tony was torn. He could use the backup. He also didn't want the backup, because no, no, Tim couldn't know what he knew. Not ever.

"This isn't your guy," the hulk of a man said, in a voice that made it clear even if it was Tony's guy (and it was), it wasn't. "Back away."

"These aren't the droids I'm looking for?" Tony said, giving himself a mental kick as soon as the shaky words were out of his mouth. Why did he sound so small and winded? Oh. Yeah. "I think you're wrong about that. I'm a federal agent. NCIS. Let him go."

"That's not going to happen."

His sidearm felt heavy in his grasp, unwieldy. He aimed it, because there wasn't anything else to do. The man, who seemed almost inhumanly large the more Tony looked at him, had their suspect in a firm grip, one hand wrapped around the guy's neck so tight his eyes were practically bugging out. It was an odd stance, the suspect held at arm's length and on his tiptoes, which left the mystery man wide open. Tony could take him with one easy shot. His palms felt sweaty. He didn't recognize this new man, not on any level he'd call tangible. He remembered a large shadowy figure (vampires, blood, death) and in his gut knew this was the same large shadowy figure, only now when Tony wasn't half dead, he seemed even bigger, stronger.

"I'm NCIS," Tony said, then scowled for being stupid and redundant. _Way_ _to_ _play_ _poker,_ _DiNozzo._ "Let the law do its job or I will fire my weapon. Are you hearing me?"

At the mention of the law, mystery gigantor snorted. Something like laughter followed, but it sent such a chill up Tony's spine he wouldn't ever in a million years call it mirthful, if he was ever asked about it. No one would ask. Why would they? That feeling, old memories stirring cold in his belly, it was telling him this standoff wasn't winnable. Time must be warping; it seemed like he'd stood there for hours and his arm was growing heavy. And still, McGee's footfalls were too close and too far.

"Soon, very soon, there'll only be one law. Mine. And under my law, this fella here is a good friend of mine with whom I need to have a chat. We went to high school together, didn't we Sid?"

Sid didn't answer. Sid didn't even look like he was breathing. Shit. Shit. This was not good. Sid's left arm twitched a little like he was trying to lift it. Okay, good. There was still a chance, unless that was only a reflexive action from a corpse. Ducky would know. Ducky might tell him, later, once this was all over and Sid was in the morgue, as long as Tony wasn't in the morgue himself in which case it would be Gibbs Ducky told. It had been seconds since he skidded to a halt, but felt a lifetime. He wasn't certain he was going to survive this if Bigfoot didn't want him to, despite being the one holding a weapon.

Tony couldn't figure out what precisely was pinging his alarms about the man, besides the obvious quiet brutality of his chokehold on Sid and coldness in his eyes. Something beyond that was downright sinister, almost inhuman. It wouldn't be the first time, but it wasn't right. His memories didn't jive with what was standing before him, staring with its head tilted in curiosity.

"Ah. He remembers you too, but you were never part of the grand design. You get a free pass for now. Just wait," the guy said. "You can burn with the rest of the world. It's going to be magnificent."

Gooseflesh broke across Tony's arms, and the nape of his neck. The threat was, as threats went, vague and more than a little ludicrous. What was troubling was that not only did he believe it, he believed it deeply though he had no idea what it meant. It was clear the guy wasn't going to relent just because Tony wanted him to. He had to take the shot, now. He braced himself to see and hear the body slump to the pavement. McGee shouted his name as his finger squeezed the trigger, and he turned reflexively. Had the shot happened, it would have gone wild.

But it didn't. Recovered from his momentary distraction, Tony glared at his gun with betrayal. Of all the times to … it was no ordinary malfunction. A large hand was wrapped around the barrel. Tony had a fantastical notion that the mere contact of that hand had halted the gun's mechanisms. Before he could register anything else, he saw a face extremely close to his but up a few inches, all hard and angular.

"I'm not a monster. To tell you the truth it'd be a lot of fun, but I'm not going to hurt you," the man said. "Go to sleep."

A cold touch on his forehead, and then Tony was engulfed by darkness.

When he came to his senses, feeling as if he'd had a long night's sleep, it occurred to him before he opened his eyes something wasn't quite right. He wasn't at home. The bed was uncomfortable and the sheets smelled of bleach and definitely weren't his thousand thread-count Egyptian cotton. Behind the bleach smell, there was coffee and also the faint sound of paper. Pages turning. He cracked his left eye open, because that was the side the sounds were coming from. Gibbs sat next to him, reading glasses perched on the end of his nose. The room they were in was white. Huh. Waking up in a hospital bed with Gibbs as his lone visitor wasn't the kind of déjà vu he enjoyed.

Before he could make a sound, Gibbs snapped his head up and snapped his whole body to attention. Tony opened both eyes. It was a rare moment to catch Gibbs looking like that, vaguely alarmed and unruffled, and he wasn't sure if he should be glad he was with it enough to recognize that or wish he wasn't with it enough.

"Tony," Gibbs said, firm and yet somehow soft. "Welcome back."

"Uh oh," Tony croaked back. "You only call me Tony when it's bad."

"It's not bad." Gibbs gave a half smile, which was not all that encouraging. Neither was what was, for Gibbs, rambling. "Don't worry, you're okay. You're going to be okay. I should let the doctor know you're awake."

"No, not …" Maybe a doctor would be good, but Tony had questions before he was poked and prodded. He blinked a few times, lifted his fingers off the bed, a tad alarmed when it was difficult to do. "Tell me what happened?"

Gibbs hesitated, also something he simply didn't do. Gibbs didn't hedge, on anything. It wasn't good when someone as stalwart and steady as Gibbs started contradicting his own personality.

"McGee found you passed out in the alley after trying to catch a perp." Gibbs frowned and leaned close. "You don't remember?"

Tony closed his eyes tight and tried to. The last thing he remembered was swiping McGee's phone to download Sir Mix-a-Lot's _Baby_ _Got_ _Back_ as his ringtone for calls coming from Ziva. Two birds with one stone pranks were the best kind. From what little he knew about his current medical condition, that could have been his last act on Earth, and he felt mildly bad about it. He felt more amused, though.

"No, I don't remember," he said. "Guy got away, I take it? If I didn't catch him by the time McGee caught up, I mean."

Gibbs cringed, inasmuch as Gibbs could, which was no outward appearance of emotion to anyone who didn't know him the way Tony did. On the whole, this conversation wasn't a good one to be having after waking in a hospital bed with no memory.

"No, he didn't exactly get away. I'll give you the full report … after the doctors clear you. Sit tight."

Where was he going to go? The more the cobwebs of sleep cleared from his brain, the more Tony realized his limbs felt weak and he was still kind of exhausted. Not knowing what had happened to him started making him more nervous, and so did the fact Gibbs apparently didn't want to give him the answers he wanted. He didn't want anyone to think Gibbs had imagined him awake, so he tried really hard to keep his eyes open. Hospitals had never been high on his list of places to visit, but ever since Jeanne, he hated them even more. It wasn't logical, but life rarely was. He wanted someone to tell him what was going on, but all he got was fragments of speech talking above and about him, not to him. Hence the hospital hate.

He gleaned enough to know he'd been unconscious for nearly two days, and that the doctors hadn't had any real idea why. It was extremely unsettling, made him on edge and keyed up. Tony endured the exam as well as he could, until one of the nurses reached toward his face. Intense panic robbed him of rationality. A voice in his head said, _"_ _I_ _'_ _m_ _not_ _a_ _monster_ _"_ in a way that sounded pretty damned monstrous, deep and cold. He jerked and rolled, was prevented from falling off the bed by multiple hands and arms and he had no idea why he was having this reaction.

"Hey." Gibbs. "Hey, DiNozzo."

Tony calmed externally, but his insides felt like they were soup being stirred, liquid and wrong. If he didn't remember, he shouldn't be reacting this way. He flipped (or was flipped) onto his back, where he had a great view of the ceiling. Gibbs' face appeared above, eyebrows scrunched together. Anger or concern, or both, it didn't matter. It made Tony feel a little better, settled him. He realized the medical staff had vacated the room, leaving him and Gibbs alone. That wouldn't last long. If he knew his team, they'd be on their way from the office where they'd been pretending not to care. He hoped, anyway. Sometimes he misgauged.

"Sorry, Boss," he said.

Now he wasn't in flight or flight mode, Tony felt stupid for his strange reaction to non-threatening things. No one liked to look a fool in front of his boss, even someone who made playing the fool a pastime. And most bosses weren't as, well, most bosses weren't Leroy Jethro Gibbs.

"Want to tell me what that was?"

Gibbs said it like an order, not a query, which for some reason made Tony regret that he didn't have a clue in a different way than if he were alone and couldn't remember.

"I don't know. I'm not sure anyway, but maybe it'll come to me." That _was_ spoken like a query, a difference in tone between him and Gibbs not lost on him. "I was out for two days."

"Completely unresponsive. Not asleep, not a head injury, not a coma."

"Huh."

"You're a bona fide medical mystery, DiNozzo."

Teasing was good. It made him feel like maybe he was okay. Tony would love to know what had landed him in a not-coma, but overall it felt more important to know Gibbs wasn't worried that he was on death's door or something.

"You know me. I like to excel at whatever I do," Tony said with a fake smile, then he dropped it and chewed on the inside corner of his mouth. "You said the guy didn't get away."

"Yeah, about that. You were alone in the alley. There was no sign of Wesen, not even a trail to follow." Gibbs sat slowly, a knee popped. "We found him yesterday, halfway across town from where you and McGee had him nearly cornered and more than a little dead."

Oh. Tony thought he remembered being close behind good ol' Sid. He remembered the feeling of pride at being able to outpace McGee was sharp and exhilarating.

"What does that mean, more than a little dead?"

"His brain was liquefied. Ducky said it's been quite awhile since he's seen anything like it." Gibbs sorta-smiled. "Again, there was no usable evidence left behind. Abby's at her wit's end."

Sounded like … like a monster had gotten Sid. Tony shivered. He'd seen more than his fair share of monsters in his life, in human form and not. He wondered if maybe he'd seen one in that alley and survived through luck or grace. There was a face, but he didn't know whose or what it meant, if anything. Cold eyes, strong jaw, perfectly shaped but ridiculous sideburns. The image alone made him feel like someone had run an ice cube down his spine. He turned his attention to Gibbs, not sure what he was going to say, but he knew he had to say something. It was important, even if he didn't know how or why. He was saved by the appearance of two figures in the doorway.

"Tony," they both said at once, and then gave each other awkward glances.

"McGeek. Ziva," Tony said, as he tried to stuff the unease and whatever it meant into a dark corner. He had an overwhelming feeling that was for the best. "Come on in."

"It is good to see you awake," Ziva said, precise and crisp, which some might take as void of emotion. Her eyes were what gave her away. "Even though it's also been nice to have so much quiet in the office."

"Yeah, we've been getting a lot of work done."

The atmosphere in the room was light and conversation, for the moment, stayed on Tony's relative health. He laughed and nodded and kept up with the verbal sparring in all the right places, but his heart wasn't one hundred percent in it. Of course, Gibbs was onto him, watched him with those hawk eyes of his. Tony spared the boss a glance and a headshake to show he was fine. He was, it was just he was a little frustrated and confused. Maybe if he could just get his brain working he'd remember more than vague feelings. Though the conversation (concern masked as barbs) was steady, Tony's eyes started crossing about fifteen minutes in. Apparently, being in a non-coma was taxing. Gibbs noticed that, too, and stood.

"That's our cue," McGee said.

"It is getting late, and we still have a killer to find." Ziva nudged McGee. "And a report to make to Abby."

"Hey, say hi to Abs for me," Tony said.

"She's very determined to find some miracle scrap of evidence, or she'd be here right now," McGee said. "You know Abby and puzzles."

That Tony did. If anyone could figure out what had happened without being an eyewitness to it, it was Abby. It spoke volumes that she chose lab over hospital visit. Tony wasn't sure what it was saying, like he wasn't sure about anything. Tomorrow, everything would be much clearer tomorrow. He barely registered Ziva and McGee exiting the room, while Gibbs lingered behind.

"You going to be all right?" Gibbs asked.

"I think so. I'm wiped," Tony said with a yawn to accentuate it. "Need to sleep, just for a bit."

The problem was, when he closed his eyes to make the point stick, all he could see was _that_ _face_. Everything rolled over him in waves, all of a sudden. Sid held by the throat by a large hand, a conversation that took forever and lasted less than a minute. A man he recognized yet had never seen before, at least he didn't think so. The gun that wouldn't fire. Pointer and middle fingers icy on his forehead. Nothingness.

"It wasn't human, was it?"

Gibbs' voice was soft, but since he'd been deep in his own head it made Tony start. He half sat up, and bucked slightly when firm pressure kept him in place. If he wasn't careful, he was going to develop a reputation as a frightened rabbit. At least Gibbs was the only witness; Tony was sure no word of this would leave the room. Especially not if monsters were involved. He'd like to go back, and pretend it all away again. Maybe this time wouldn't be like the last, except it kind of already had been. He'd been touched by something not of their world before. He knew what it was like. Besides, the touch he'd gotten had come from a man who, according to reports, had died years ago.

"He was human the first time we met him," Tony said after a moment. "But, no. Whatever he is now, I don't think it's human."

Truthfully, Tony had never met Sam Winchester. Truthfully, he never wanted to again.

 **NCISPN**

Somewhere along the way home from a long day of chasing down bad guys, Tony had developed a hankering for _phở_ _gà_. The long day was only part of it. The flu shot he had to get every year because he was high risk always left him feeling achy and slightly ill. He could live without the flu symptoms, but he supposed flu was better than plague. And nothing healed the flu like chicken soup, after all. Made perfect sense to him, not that there was ever a wrong time for _phở_.

"Order number four fifty two, for DiNozzo," the bored-looking teen behind the counter called out and made a show of searching for the right person.

Tony was the only one waiting for take-out. He was also a frequent patron and was sure the kid knew who he was on sight. Everyone was a smartass these days. He'd have more grounds to gripe if his whole persona hadn't been crafted to rely on smartassery. He grabbed the brown paper bag off the counter, opened it to make sure it was right and breathed in the strong, savory smell. His stomach growled.

"Thanks," he said. "Have a nice night."

"Sure."

The street was relatively quiet, a couple walking the opposite way on the other side of the street, no heavy vehicle traffic. It was pretty late, and though the city never slept completely, residential pockets like the one he lived in were fairly sedate. Maybe Tony acted the playboy, but he enjoyed the lackluster quality to his neighborhood. To tell the truth, it never hurt his luck with the ladies. Well, the ones that he didn't exaggerate to make himself look good. Women wanted a man who at least appeared stable, and nothing said stable like a nice place filled with nice things in a nice neighborhood. There was always room for naughty, but nice was what everyone thought they wanted. He smiled to himself and fumbled for the keys.

That was when he heard it, a squeal of tires and then a scream. In the otherwise silent night, the sounds were disparate and loud. Instinct had him pivoting toward the sounds, switching his takeout back to his left hand and reaching for his gun with his right. Tony didn't have much of a chance. A fast moving body plowed into him from the left, sending him ass over teakettle. His _phở_ landed with a splat. After that, everything seemed to move in slow motion. Behind the guy who'd knocked him down came another figure.

A very large, unfortunately familiar figure. Tony froze. He completely locked up for what was probably a second but felt like ten minutes. He was suddenly five months ago, in a dark alley with a non-human human-looking thing starting him down. _Déjà_ _vu_ _all_ _over_ _again_ , he thought, and, _not_ _this_ _time_. He didn't know the odds of him running into a supposedly dead guy who was a little less in the human department than he should be; they had to be astronomical. He watched the hulking figure of Sam Winchester take down the first guy with a flying tackle, and was spurred into action. Tony scrambled to his knees and took aim. He couldn't afford to hesitate this time. He was witnessing an assault, or worse.

"Hey, freeze," he said. "I'm a federal agent. Let that man go."

The man Tony was attempting to save twisted in Winchester's grip, and that was when he realized that guy wasn't human either. Jesus, Mary and Joseph. He thought maybe he was hallucinating, or someone was messing with his head. He didn't know anyone who'd mess with this kind of shit.

"I'm afraid we can't do that," said a deep, commanding voice, right up close to his left ear.

Tony spun, startled. He caught a bare glimpse of an older man, hairless except for two giant, bushy eyebrows and then an elbow jammed into his right eye socket. He went down in a fiery haze of pain, clutched at his face. His gun clattered along the sidewalk and his ears rung in a way that made everything sound like he was at the end of a long tunnel. He didn't pass out, though.

"Shoot him or something, Samuel. No witnesses," Sam Winchester said.

Sam, Sammy, Samuel.

"Get that thing in the van. And I am not shooting him. He's a federal agent, and he's a human being," Samuel said. "Jesus Christ, kid, sometimes I wonder about you."

"Whatever."

Tony pulled his hands away, squinted through teary eyes at the man standing above him. Samuel, the elder and follically-challenged, leaned toward him with an angry scowl on his face.

"This isn't what you think. We're the good guys," he said, then stood up. "Sorry about this."

There came a jab to his left thigh, and nearly instantly, things started to swirl. The last thing Tony thought before succumbing to whatever drug had been pumped into him was that Gibbs was going to have his head for letting this happen to him again.


	2. Chapter 2

It could be said Tony was obsessed. He wasn't. He worked with Leroy Jethro Gibbs, the master of obsession. What he was doing came nowhere near what Gibbs was like when he had a score to settle. For one thing, Tony didn't want vengeance; he wanted to stay alive. For another, he didn't constantly think about it; it only cropped up in quiet moments. Okay, so it had been a full year since he'd had his second up close and personal encounter with Sam Winchester and he still expected the guy to pop from around every corner. Big deal. He chalked it up to basic human reaction to stress and if pressed, he'd say anyone in the world would have the same kind of feelings.

He couldn't figure it, though. According to all official documentation, Sam and his brother Dean had both perished years ago in Colorado. Until a few days ago, when they came out of hiding to go on a very public, massive killing spree and were gunned down. Dead. Again. The whole thing stank, and he wasn't sure what to believe, though in the corner of his mind he did believe Sam Winchester could still show up. It didn't make sense, but it made total sense.

It turned out there were lots of things that could come back from the dead.

Tony was careful about only doing research into the supernatural from his home or his non-work phone when no one was looking. The last thing he needed was for everyone to think he was crazy. He wasn't any crazier than he was obsessed. He simply had to have all his bases covered. A part of him wondered if his two run-ins with the presumed dead Winchester had happened at all, or at least if his memories of them were real. It was all blurry these days, since he'd found himself in a completely different alley with a completely different and explainable head injury. Since EJ and Cade. He was pretty sure he hadn't imagined Sam Winchester's cold, dead eyes. He was pretty sure waking in the middle of the night and covered in sweat wasn't a figment of his imagination.

He'd had no idea there were so many things that went bump in the night which could take human form, trick real humans into becoming dinner. Vampires, those he knew about firsthand. Tony shuddered. That experience he would have preferred to have kept under mental lock and key, but it, like Winchester, frequented his brain more often than he liked these days. After a few years of storing it neatly in the back of his head, it was something of an affront and starting to be a distraction. He didn't know why, other than fear of death, this was bothering him so much.

But there were many old urban legends out there so much worse than vampires, and Tony couldn't help but wonder how many of them were real. So far, all he'd managed to do was conjure up nightmares and paranoia. He was no closer after twelve months of spotty research (he wasn't obsessed) to figuring out what Sam Winchester was or had been these days. To tell the truth, he was more concerned that Sam Winchester wasn't the only whatever out there, and look at him afraid of his own shadow now. Okay, so maybe he was a tiny little smidgen obsessed. It was hard not to be when there was a gory image about what happened to a skinwalker's skin once it no longer wanted to use that shape. He grimaced. That was worse than anything he'd seen in autopsy.

"Gear up," Gibbs said, coming, as always, out of nowhere.

In his haste to clear the supernatural evidence off of his phone screen, Tony nearly dropped it. Ziva eyeballed him with that look of hers which either meant she thought he was an idiot or that there was something seriously, irritatingly wrong with him. Little did she know how right she was on both counts. He was spooking himself unnecessarily, letting the fact it was the day before Halloween really stir his imagination.

"We've got a dead sailor on a pier." Gibbs clipped the words out as he walked, barely pausing to pull his stuff from a desk drawer.

"Ah, the good old dead petty officer days," Tony said. "How I've missed them."

"You wouldn't be celebrating the death of a petty officer, would you, DiNozzo?"

"No, Boss. Of course not, Boss."

Tony pulled a face he knew Gibbs would see and make him pay for even though his boss was already at the elevators. It was expected and familiar and for some reason he'd welcome the head slap he was about to get in four, three, two…slap. Right on time, delivered before Tony could get too comfortable in his place in the elevator car but without any force or malice behind it. People that didn't know them didn't understand it was a Gibbs sign of affection as well as aggravation. It was as good as a hug, as far as Tony was concerned. A day didn't feel right without at least one head slap.

They broke all land speed records to get to the scene; didn't seem to matter what traffic was like, when Gibbs was behind the wheel, even rush hour was a piece of cake. It was like the ocean of cars parted like the Red frigging Sea. Tony beat McGee and Ziva to camera duty, which was for the best. He managed to get the best pictures, and thanked his love of live action film for it. Some shots were impossible to call good, though, because the subject material wasn't exactly fantastic. The sailor had gaping holes where the eyes used to be, an ear was gone and so were most of the fingers on his left hand. He was fully dressed, in uniform. Tony thought that odd, but a blessing. If he could help it, he wasn't going to make any visits to Ducky on this case.

"Ensign Matthew Yee," McGee announced with a grimace as he held up a soggy wallet.

They'd lucked out, there. It was clear the ensign had been in the water for some time, so prints on his remaining fingers were probably useless and the wallet could've been lost. Tony wondered how Yee got out from his liquid tomb. He studied the ground, snapped a few pictures.

"Boss, he went missing off of the USS Saratoga a little over two months ago when they were docked for scheduled maintenance."

"Two months." Gibbs sounded irritated, but then he always did. "Who was on it and why weren't they called instead of us, McGee?"

Tony fuzzed out a little bit, eyes still on the ground, but he did hear McGee get real quiet-like and nervous. He heard "Barrett" and took that as a cue to follow an interesting still-damp trail of scuffmarks that happened to end at Yee. That was probably the path whoever dropped the ensign off had dragged the body. His brain was half on that, half on EJ. EJ Barrett was probably dead, like the poor sailor they were processing. He thought maybe someday they'd get a call to do the same for her corpse. Tony tried to think happy thoughts, of happy times he'd had with EJ and couldn't. All he could think was she was dead and he couldn't do anything about it. And then he couldn't think about that anymore, because he had to focus on Yee. He nodded to Ducky and Palmer as they arrived on scene, but didn't stick around for initial readings and guesses as to cause of death. Dead was dead. Tony would put early odds on drowning, himself.

"What've you got, DiNozzo?"

Gibbs's voice came out of nowhere. With no possibility of faking that he hadn't just jumped practically out of his skin, Tony did what he could to compose himself before speaking. He didn't want to squeak.

"Startled me, Boss."

"Noticed," Gibbs said, with one of those not-quite-smiles of his, which disappeared into full frown. Oddly, he went off topic then. "You been feeling all right lately?"

Tony knew Gibbs had been keeping tabs on him, since the incident, the whole undercover for SECNAV, death and concussion in a dark alley thing. The thing he wished he could turn around in his head to paint a better picture. Maybe he could, given time, but then again, what would stop something from triggering him, what could be his next Sam Winchester non-obsession? He shook his head, then nodded.

"Fine, I've been feeling fine," Tony said, a lie he knew was thin. He covered by doing his job. "Looks like Yee was dragged quite a ways."

Yee had been dragged inland from the very end of the pier. In the grand scheme, it wasn't that far, but there were faster routes from sea to land. He would have had to have been on a boat or something. Tony couldn't figure how else anyone would have been able to haul a body up that height, but the state of the corpse spoke to a fair amount of time submerged. He knitted his eyebrows.

"Yep," Gibbs said. "I'll get Ziva on it."

Then Gibbs was gone, their mock touchy-feely moment over, and Tony was, for all intents and purposes, alone. The bustle of activity behind him was comforting, and the relatively open water in front of him seemed desolate and huge. It wasn't, really. There were always ships, noises. He tried to picture how Yee had ended up first swimming with the fishes and then up in plain sight on land. Something in his gut said it was no coincidence, but it wasn't terribly logical, either. If someone had purposely killed the guy, there wouldn't be a point to regurgitating the body from the water. A murderer would want the corpse to stay down until all the little and big fishies did their work. Gross. He would not want to go out that way. It didn't matter if he wouldn't know it was happening. He didn't want his eyeballs nibbled on. No, thank you. No.

He turned, and saw Ducky and Palmer already loading the body. He didn't think he'd stood there for so long. No one was looking his direction. Tony was sure they wouldn't leave him behind, but started for his team anyway. No amount of staring moodily at the water would give him instant answers which would solve this case fast and easy. His instinct told him there was going to be nothing easy about this one. Four steps into his trek back to the scene, he wasn't sure what made him halt in his tracks. A feeling, really. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end.

"Please," someone said, "do you have the time?"

Tony got a chill. The question was innocuous, but the voice sounded hollow. Otherworldly, if he was going to be purple prosy about it. He had been spending too much time watching those morons on Ghostfacers and digging into weird things on more reputable sites and books. He looked at his watch.

"It's three fifteen," Tony said, looking at the person who asked. "Where the heck did you come from?"

It was just a guy. Dock worker, perhaps. Nothing scary about him, certainly not in the affable smile he gave Tony or the sincerity in his eyes. Bit by bit, Tony relaxed. The urge to flee faded. In fact, what he wanted to do was stay right there.

"Thank you kindly," the man said, sounding like he was from the wrong era and completely ignoring Tony's question. "I do appreciate it."

"No problem." Tony scrunched his forehead. "Uh, have a good afternoon."

"And the very same to you." The man's expression turned thoughtful. "Say, I don't suppose you'd rather come with me than where you were heading off to, now would you?"

No, Tony thought, I would really rather not. That was his first inkling only, though. After a moment, it seemed like a really fantastic idea. He moved, though he didn't recall making the decision to do so, and went the opposite direction that he should. He realized he'd like nothing more than to follow this guy.

"Sure. Where are we going?" Tony asked, and he felt numb all over. It was very bizarre.

"Somewhere nice. Somewhere very nice. You'll like it," the man said. "I promise."

Tony saw no reason to argue that. He plodded along, not really seeing where he was going. He only had eyes for the bizarre man leading him away. There was something, something, but he didn't know what. He thought he should take a photograph, because Abby knew odd stuff like no other and she'd help him sort it all out. He lifted the camera.

"No pictures, please," the man said without turning around. "I'm not terribly photogenic."

"Okay, sorry."

Tony pulled the strap over his head, let the camera thump against his chest as he walked. No pictures. No, no pictures. But that was his job. He fingered the camera again. Clicked the button absently. He thought he heard his name. Oh, Gibbs and McGee and Ziva. That was where he was supposed to be, not here. Doubt creeped in, though his feet continued to follow.

"Stay with me," the man said. "It'll only take a second."

"Just a second," Tony said. His thought processes felt foggy, like his drink had been spiked except he hadn't had a drink. "Good."

They walked forever, which was not right at all. It only seemed that way because Tony was so sleepy. Something about the way the guy moved was making him feel extra tired, even though that made no sense at all even in his muddled brain. He stared at the man's shoulders, his sea green coveralls. He noticed the cuffs of the man's pants were wet. Dripping, actually.

"Hey, you've sprung a leak." Tony laughed. "You might want to get that looked at."

"I like the water. The sound of it is very soothing." The man half-turned, spread his right arm out. "Don't you like water?"

"You know, I really do."

"I'll bet it's nice in there. Why don't you go on in?"

Tony wasn't sure how they'd gotten under the pier. He wasn't sure of anything but the lapping of water against the rough shoreline and the overwhelming urge to walk into the sea. So, that was exactly what he did.


	3. Chapter 3

"I don't know, Bobby, he's just _gone_ , okay?" Dean Winchester said, phone pressed tight against his ear. "I knew this was going to happen again eventually. Didn't I tell you?"

"That's all you've been saying, even though you know better'n anyone that if you tighten a leash too much all you're going to do is choke your dog."

"Jesus. Sam's not a dog, Bobby."

"That ain't what I meant and you know it."

"Fucking A. I'm going out of my gourd here."

Dean paced a tight line at the foot of the beds. The thing of it was, he'd just started relaxing when it came to Sam. His brother hadn't had any random fugue states, hallucinations or anything like that lately. If anything, he'd been a little too normal. Even the tantrum about Dean killing Amy Pond against his express wishes had been mild, all things considered. Given their lives, Dean had taken the normalcy as a gift horse and he wasn't going to look it in the mouth. Well, he guessed now he should have figured that was the wrong approach. He shouldn't have let his guard down, not for a second. The next gift horse was headed for the damned glue factory, no hesitation.

"Will you stop a minute to get your undies untwisted?" Bobby snapped. "Calm down. I think you'll agree the last thing we need is for both of you to get unhinged. How long's it been since you last saw him?"

"About five hours."

If their lives were regular, Dean would have been one of those hysterical people calling the cops and being told there was nothing to be done until a person was missing for twenty-four hours. A logical rule, but nothing Winchester was logical. Regular people didn't have a brother whose soul was filled with memories no one could remember and stay sane. Regular people didn't have a shoddily constructed wall inside to keep the bad shit from spilling out. There were too many possibilities for Dean to contemplate, and none of them good.

"You think this could be about the kitsune girl again?"

"Shit, I don't know. I know he's still pissed about that, and he should be. I don't begrudge him that. I just don't think he'd ditch me because of it, not again."

Bobby's silence didn't really ease his mind in that regard, but Dean was glad the other man didn't remind him of the times Sam had wandered off on his own as a direct result of far lesser transgressions. Sam Winchester, sensitive soul. Unfortunately, now that sensitive soul was also likely to break into a billion pieces. He didn't know if Sam heard or saw Lucifer anymore; he was holding his cards close. He did know he didn't like the odds of Sam staying sane for long.

"Sam didn't leave a note, no nothing, Bobby. His phone's GPS is being wonky or something and I can't get him to answer. I've left calm messages."

"And…?"

"And angry, shouty ones. This new Boy-Next-Door Sam would have answered before I got to that point unless he's really that pissed. Until the whole Amy thing, it's been like I'm riding around with a Stepford wife." Dean ran a hand through his hair. "He went to the library, so far as I know, and now he's gone."

"If not hurt feelings, you think maybe Leviathan?"

"No, I doubt that one too," Dean said. It was the only plus he could see at the moment. "They don't seem to contain a single ounce of subtlety. If they wanted us, they'd have come full on like that one you Boraxed, or try to get the cops on us. I don't think they'll make a play that public again."

"If it's not Leviathan related, did you and Sam have any leads on the missing folks in that area yet?"

By that question, Dean knew what Bobby was doing and was as grateful as he was annoyed. His tension actually eased the more he thought it through. It wouldn't completely dissipate until he had a visual on Sam– as fucked up as it was, once again Sam was all he really had. And Bobby, but Bobby had been trying to cope with the loss of his home, getting his feet on the ground. He felt guilty for calling their old friend when he knew the guy had a lot of shit on his mind.

"Not really. To tell you the truth, until Sam disappeared on me I wasn't sure there was anything here. People go missing all the time."

Bobby fell silent again.

"Don't say it, Bobby," Dean said. "Besides all that, this isn't exactly a great area to avoid encounters with the FBI. I want us to stay dead this time, you know?"

"I wasn't going to say anything," Bobby said, "and you're bang on about staying dead. Look, tell me what you do know. Maybe I can dig something up to help."

Of course Bobby could. Patching his library back together was a huge task, Dean knew, but he also knew Bobby had a firm grasp on which books to collect first. For all he knew, the old man already had a shiny new library set up.

"Four people vanished about two months ago, turned up in various places dead a month later. No pattern that we could distinguish, but all of them had been in the water for part of their decomp. Autopsy reports weren't good enough to determine if anything supernatural chomped on them," Dean said. He chewed on his thumb for a second. "'Bout the same time those corpses were found, more people started disappearing."

"Sounds like a pattern."

"Yeah, that's what Sam said."

"Any of the second batch show up yet so you can have some fresh intel?"

"No, not yet." Dean sat on the edge of his bed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "You can see why I'm worried. Sam could have gone all space cadet, or worse, and he'd be easy pickings for who or whatever this was. I'm not ruling out regular human sicko."

"And you're sure it's not Leviathan."

"Pretty sure. They'd have come for me by now or put on a big show. It's goddamned Halloween, the perfect cover for things that go bump in the night."

Shit, Dean hated Halloween.

"I'll get there as soon as I can, if you need me."

Inside, Dean was itching for exactly that. Not that he wouldn't have been twitchy anyway, but with Sam prone to hallucinations not that long ago, and still managed a thousand-yard-stare at least once every day or two, the ante seemed about four hundred times higher than usual.

"No, Bobby, I know you've got a lot on your plate. I'll poke around, see what I can see first."

"I'll let you know what I can find, but you haven't really given me anything to go on. If that changes, let me know, and if you find Sam in the meantime, give him a smack for me, will ya? I'm getting too old for this crap. And, Dean? Don't do anything stupid like get yourself caught too."

Dean felt a little gratified that Bobby was concerned even while he was being practical and lending a call for common sense element to Dean's mild panic. Sam was in extremely good shape, physically, so whatever got him had to be bad or had to have another advantage to exploit. That narrowed it down to just about a billion possible suspects, natural and supernatural. He needed this like he needed a festering boil. He tossed the phone on the bed to go splash cold water on his face. It didn't really help, and he had no idea why he'd thought it would. What he needed was a bottle of whisky and maybe some aspirin. And they, too, he knew, would do jack squat to make him feel better. Booze was his only outlet, though he knew he was doing no one any favors by drowning in bottle after bottle.

He scrubbed his face dry with the rough motel towel and threw it angrily into the sink basin when he was done. As Dean stepped from the bathroom intent on having at least two shots of whisky despite it all, his phone buzzed, then buzzed a few more times. Finally, that had to be Sam marathon texting him. He pulled the messages up, frowned. They were short bursts, really. First, "Think I got." Then, "It. Nizxc it." And finally just, "mic, wate." Three separate messages, and none of them told him a damned thing. It didn't sound like Sam being cryptic so much as Sam being … terrible at texting, which wasn't very Sam-like at all.

"Well, that's helpful," Dean muttered.

At least he could call Sam, get some straight answers and while he was at it, unload a few hours worth of pent-up worry off his chest ala disproportionate anger. When the attempt to do all of that was thwarted by an unanswered phone, he bit back a curse, then did the only thing he felt like he could. He dashed out a text of his own, "You better be okay", with little to no hope his brother would actually receive it. The more he thought about it, the more he thought maybe Sam's own texts could have been sent hours ago. What a time for failed technology. On a whim, he checked Sam's GPS again and it was on. To think, the idea of GPS actually used to creep him out.

His worry notched up about Sam not answering, but a location was good. It was somewhere to start. 2713 Mitscher Rd. Dean leaned closer, out of reflex. Anacostia. Shit, that sounded familiar, though he didn't know why. It couldn't be good. A quick click on Google Maps clarified that address was the headquarters for the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. No, no, so not good.

"Sam, you idiot, what did you get yourself into?"

This was all very coincidental. Dean vaguely remembered years ago Sam bragging about breaking into NCIS' extremely secure system to find him after that bitch vampire snagged him, and he remembered that NCIS agent who was also vamp bait. Mouthy guy, the kind that knew he was charming and therefore wasn't charming at all. Dean hated guys like that. He had to wonder, though, if saving the guy's life might give him an edge. If only he could remember his name. He was pretty sure he'd remember the face. Too bad he wasn't the geek Sam was when it came to computers. Out of curiosity and maybe the glimmer of an impulsive, stupid idea, he hit the NCIS homepage to see if they had any images of their headquarters. Blueprint would be better, but what could he do? He wasn't a hacker.

Finding that guy for potential favor/potential blackmail would be a Plan B, only used if he couldn't figure out how to retrieve Sam on his own. After all these years, the last thing he expected was the _law_ , even some rinky-dink agency of it, to catch them. Looked like they weren't going to stay dead for long after all. He sighed. Playing cop and walking in to their own offices was stupid and risky, but if they already knew Sam was alive, they had to figure Dean was too. If he could avoid certain people, the risk could also pay off. There really was no debating. He wanted Sam back in one piece, and Sam was likely at NCIS. It was time to pull out the suit and aviator shades.

It didn't occur to Dean that like the Leviathan, if Sam had ended up in the clutches of a government agency, they would have tried to locate him. There'd have been some kind of manhunt if that were the case, with half of the sadistic Winchester brothers resurrected yet again and in custody. He didn't think for a second Sam'd give him up, but he also knew from Sam's stories that even years ago NCIS had state of the art equipment. How much easier had it become to track someone like them, now that someone might know to look?

Dean took back his gratitude about the GPS, and all the advances in technology. He wouldn't go so far as to recollect the good ol' days of hunting John Winchester style, but damn. It threw a wrench in his thoughts. It might be Sam's phone was at NCIS, but Sam wasn't and they didn't know what they had. He was fairly sure Devereaux had cleared them totally and NCIS would only discover the phone belonged to one Mr. Tom Smith, a guy with zero credit or criminal history. The phone wasn't vital, but it was his only link.

He had to find out, one way or another, if Sam had gotten snagged or if he'd lost his phone and somehow got really, really lost on the way back to the motel. Dean used that blessing-or-curse-depending-on-scenario technology to find the directions to NCIS, put on his best suit, most winning smile and went to follow the only lead he had on Sam. He'd worry about potential supernatural beings and re-killing him and Sam later.


	4. Chapter 4

Gibbs' anger was working up to boiling point. He harbored great fondness for DiNozzo, though he worked hard to demonstrate otherwise. It was their thing, the prickly affection masquerading as impatience tolerance. He knew DiNozzo also understood him better than anyone else on the team, though that, too, was not for full public knowledge. He wasn't sure DiNozzo even knew that one. There was just something about DiNozzo that was exasperating and endearing almost at the same time. Gibbs might fight the urge to slap the back of the guy's head at least four times a day, but he liked Tony.

Sometimes, though, Gibbs' best agent was a serious pain in his backside. Like right now, for example. Ducky and Palmer had left half an hour ago, were probably already back in the morgue, but the rest of them were stuck here because Tony had decided to up and disappear on him.

"Tony!" Ziva's voice was faint, that was how far she'd circled out.

"Tony!" McGee shouted, seconds after Ziva's call faded into the water. "Hey, Tony!"

Something ate at his gut, something more than irritation at DiNozzo's antics. The longer this went on, the more concern took the place of annoyance. More accurately, the annoyance failed to mask the concern, even in his own mind. Tony was many often aggravating things, but he wasn't irresponsible on the job. He wouldn't go anywhere he couldn't get back from in time for the on-scene wrap-up. That was why he was angry. Concern and anger were close companions, not-so-strange bedfellows. He was angry with DiNozzo for vanishing and at himself for letting it happen practically under his nose. The absence of evidence rankled. Nothing was done without leaving a trace, yet Tony was just … gone. He didn't like it.

"Boss, I got something," McGee called, voice almost lost to the wind, as if he'd had a line to Gibbs' thoughts.

McGee was at least a hundred yards from him, waving his arms like he thought no one would see him otherwise. Gibbs broke into a swift trot and wasn't surprised when Ziva quickly caught up from her own search a hundred yards the opposite direction from McGee. She was young and ex-Mossad, but it was still annoying how quick she was, reminded him of his own age and mortality. He pursed his lips as they approached McGee, wondering about DiNozzo's mortality. The kid had better not be what McGee was gesticulating about.

He wasn't, but that didn't make Gibbs feel much relief.

"That is Tony's hat," Ziva's eyes immediately left the shoreline for the icy dark water. "And it is very wet."

"Yeah, it's wet," Gibbs said.

Wet, like had been submerged. Gibbs felt a headache forming, the kind that wouldn't go away until his agent was back where he was supposed to be.

"I honestly thought for a while he was pranking us. You know, a pre-Halloween spook," McGee muttered.

"Tony hates Halloween," Ziva said flatly. "As juvenile as he is, I'm not sure this is the kind of prank he'd pull."

"Yeah, I know. I know. But how would he have gotten past us and all the way down here?" McGee looked baffled enough for all of them. "It doesn't make any sense."

It made sense if water currents were taken into consideration. Tony could have gone in back at the pier.

"Bag it, and keep looking," Gibbs said, tone clipped. His gut ached now too. "I gotta make a call."

This was beyond his team now. He needed to let Vance know what was going on. They'd need another team, maybe Coast Guard search and rescue (not retrieve, no). Gibbs couldn't fathom Tony going into the water, but he couldn't fathom where else he would have gone without leaving a trace. Hell, he was starting to wonder if Ensign Yee hadn't been the only disappearance-slash-death in the last month or so, but the only one NCIS'd get called to. Civilian drownings didn't mean much for their jurisdiction, but a dead sailor and a missing agent escalated this. Still, it shouldn't be too hard to determine if there'd been any civilian disappearances in the area recently. He'd avoid bringing FBI in if he could, but he knew they'd be on it in a flash if dots were there to be connected.

He kept his conversation with Vance short and to the point. Half an hour wasn't a long time for someone to be missing and Gibbs had the sense to know if anyone else had called this in, Vance would have told them to not jump to conclusions, give it a few minutes. DiNozzo's hat could have fallen off, he could have followed a trail and lost track of time. Etc, etc. But, like it or not, Vance knew him too, knew he wouldn't panic and report an agent missing if said agent weren't actually missing, particularly an agent that had up and gone missing on him several times over the past nine or so years. DiNozzo had a shitty track record, never his fault, but it'd had come way too close way too often.

Gibbs wasn't going to allow this time to toe over that line. He was going to find Tony, and he was going to wring his neck for putting them through this again. That would take place after, of course, he put whoever had his man behind bars or below the ground. He strode back to Ziva and McGee, both sticking close to each other now and another fifteen feet down. In fact, they were standing stock still, looking down. He picked his way to them, cursed his old knees the whole way.

"Camera," Ziva said. "It looks severely damaged."

He recognized it as obviously the one he'd just seen Tony wielding at the Yee scene. Gibbs took off his hat, ran a hand through his hair and then jammed the hat back on low, to cover the frustration in his eyes.

"Yes, it does," Gibbs said.

Something else glinted in the late afternoon sun. Gibbs walked the several feet himself, squatted down and found a cell phone.

"That's not Tony's."

"No. Doesn't mean whoever owns it isn't involved somehow. Witness, maybe." Involved in or witness to what was another question, and one he wasn't too eager to find out lest he not like the answer. Gibbs tossed the cell into the bag Ziva had prepped. He scowled for a second and said, "McGee, get that all back to Abby and help see if you can salvage anything from it. She needs to know what's going on, but try not to alarm her. Ziva and I'll stay here to wait for Coast Guard divers."

"Got it, Boss," McGee said, but looked like he'd rather stay.

Truthfully, Gibbs couldn't have McGee around. McGee would _talk_. The kid would pull random, nervous commentary he had yet to shake from his habits, which would only set all of them further on edge. His own brain's random, nervous commentary was more than enough. With Ziva, he'd still get the worried looks, but she was nearly as tight-lipped as he was himself. They continued searching until reinforcements arrived, and all the while Gibbs kept thinking like McGee had, that Tony might spring out from somewhere with a shit-eating grin on his face. It would piss him off to no end, but he'd rather an elaborate prank gone out of control than to see Tony's face the way Ensign Yee's had ended up.

Once the search switched to marine, there was an hour, maybe an hour and a half of adequate light left, and he knew the divers could operate at night but wouldn't like to. The air was cold and the water colder. Gibbs closed his eyes, hating this feeling as much today as he had anytime something happened to someone who was his responsibility, someone he cared about. He thought about Mike Franks, going out for a walk and dying in a bloody mess on a quiet, residential street. He thought about Jenny Sheppard, who he suspected had chosen to go down guns blazing instead of letting a disease take her. He thought about Kate Todd, who saved his life one moment and had hers stolen the next. He thought about Shannon and Kelly.

But this wasn't like any of those scenarios. Tony was like a damned rubber ball, and if he was in the water, he needed to bounce to the surface right now. Except, Gibbs knew, if he did that, he'd be dead. If Tony was in the water, he was dead. That was it. He was four seconds away from screaming to turn the boat around, his man couldn't be out there, when the call was taken from his hands. The silent wait on deck was over for the night, with no results. He and Ziva had no choice but to go back, hope Abby had found something useful on Tony's camera.

The ride back to NCIS headquarters was as wordless as the time on the boat, only Gibbs was starting to think that was just as bad as McGee's talking would have been.

"I am worried, Gibbs," Ziva said when they were in the elevator, the first she'd shared with him in hours. "This is not the first time this has happened."

"No, it's not," he said, "but we're going to find him. You can be sure of that."

He knew it was wholly inadequate as far as comfort went but it was all he had. There wasn't a question the Yee case had been handed off, Vance had assured him of that, though something about it niggled. Ducky would fill him in when asked, but the first place both he and Ziva needed to go was Abby's lab. He was hoping his amazing forensics scientist would have something for him to go on that was more substantial than his gut. His gut had gotten them nowhere, because his gut was telling him Tony was in the drink and that was simply not an option. His gut, rarely wrong, was wrong here.

"No, I'm telling you, McGee, it was _right_ _here_ ," Abby's smoky voice could be heard from down the corridor. "I don't lose evidence."

"I know you don't, Abs," McGee said, voice placating. "I wasn't implying otherwise, but it is gone."

Bickering right now almost sounded like music in Gibbs' ears, but not quite. They had to focus, and it sounded like neither McGee or Abby were managing that. He didn't know how much he had in him to be a hardass about it. He put an iron expression on his face as he and Ziva crossed the threshold into the lab, which was decked in gaudy Halloween decorations. Despite the macabre element, Gibbs hated the festiveness on sight.

"What's gone, and where?" Gibbs asked.

Both Abby and McGee lurched, startled, and exchanged guilty glances. After some sort of mental dialogue, ala waggling eyebrows and hand gestures, McGee turned to him.

"The cell phone we found near Tony's camera."

Damn. And shit. And fuck.

"You mean our only potential lead on who might, at the very least, know what happened to DiNozzo?"

"If it's any comfort, I already pulled the data from it."

"I'm not sure how comforting that's supposed to be."

"Probably not very. There wasn't much on it. I've never seen such a clean phone, at least at first glance, so it might have been treated as a disposable. We'll find it because I do not lose evidence and I can take a closer look," Abby said. She chewed her lower lip for a second, and her eyes looked haunted. When she spoke again, her voice was small. "You didn't find Tony?"

"No, we did not," Ziva said.

Gibbs knew there were other things to focus on, the camera, namely, but he was bothered by the loss of the phone. He didn't know why, but thought perhaps it had something to do with it being junk. Abby was the last person he wanted to dog about something that probably had very little to do with finding Tony; she was too good to have misplaced evidence, which usually meant something else happened to it.

"How could a phone just disappear?" The same way Tony did. Poof. Like magic. Like the monsters Tony was researching (yes, he knew about that and chose not to say anything) had come to life. "What happened?"

"That guy," McGee and Abby said simultaneously, as if they only just remembered the possibility.

"What guy?"

"He said his name was Agent Smith, which, wow, now that I say it out loud sounds really suspicious." Abby waved her hands around. "I didn't recognize him. He said he was from the Northwest field office. He popped in for something. What was it he wanted? Do you remember, McGee?"

"I dunno, he somehow got us looking at the camera and what images we could save from it…"

Alarm bells started to ring loudly. Abby wouldn't lose evidence, which meant someone swiped it. This Agent Smith seemed a good candidate, but why the phone? He was starting to get a bad feeling. Not his regular bad feeling, either, the special, worse one where he knew things were going to get unfortunate and strange.

"But he didn't take the camera or the SD card?" Ziva asked.

"No, it's right here."

"Speaking of cameras, pull up when our mystery man appeared in the lab, Abs," Gibbs said. "I've got a feeling I need to check before we go over what you found."

No one questioned his gut. The Gibbs gut was legend for a reason. He waited semi-patiently as Abby retrieved the security footage as requested, though he could tell she was itching to ask why and to discuss _Tony_ , not some random man. But when the images came up, Gibbs knew he'd made the right call. The recognition took a bit, as the man looked different from the first time Gibbs had laid eyes on him. Older, rougher. Healthier. Their first encounter flashed in his head like a fucking movie montage, brief glimpses in a hospital stairwell.

"Son of a bitch, that's not possible," he swore. "How long ago was he here?"


	5. Chapter 5

The amount of time in his life that Sam Winchester felt like he was barely holding it together versus the amount of time he was just fine was hopelessly unbalanced. It wasn't fair, but he'd learned to live with the fact that barely holding it together was his normal. Considering all he'd been through in the last year alone, barely holding on was actually an advancement of situations. Lately, the only thing he had that was even remotely steady was Dean. And Bobby. If he were going to be honest, that didn't seem to mean as much as it used to, as far as Dean went. Not that it was Dean's fault – he'd been through a wringer of his own, and so much of it felt like it was Sam's fault, actually. Hell. Having Lisa and then losing Lisa. Dealing with a brother with soulless sociopathic tendencies. The list could go on, all valid reasons for Dean to withdraw, not his support, just … emotional withdrawal.

And then there was the thing with Amy. It wasn't that Dean deemed her a threat and killed her that upset Sam the most, and he didn't want to think what that meant about him. No, it was that in doing so Dean was wordlessly stating with great finality how little he trusted Sam to be able to handle the truth. Sam got it. He wasn't sure he trusted himself, either, so why would Dean? It stung, but it wasn't like there weren't grounds for it. He hoped, one day, that Dean and he would be able to have a more honest relationship. After years of not, he wasn't sure how to get them there. He was sure things were getting better. Still, thinking about all of that didn't matter right now.

What he needed most right at this moment _was_ his brother, who had always been there when it counted the most. Of course it wasn't going to happen because Dean was probably having his face eaten off as Sam was stuck there, trying to keep his brain focused, the wall up and memories of Hell at bay. He couldn't afford to zone out, have a seizure or succumb to a hallucination, because he wasn't sure of anything anymore. He had no idea if Dean was in the same situation as him, if Dean was looking for him, if anything. He couldn't remember, which meant he'd had a blackout at some point. He'd been doing great blocking out the endless reruns of _I Love Lucifer_ , or he had been until he'd walked away from Dean. It wasn't a shining moment, but he'd needed the space.

It totally sucked that in getting the space to breathe, Sam had realized how much he needed Dean despite the anger on his part and lack of trust on Dean's. Sam was a walking, talking contradiction of terms. He wanted to be fine; he wasn't fine. He loved Dean; he hated Dean. He didn't see fire everywhere, except everything he looked at burned. He rolled onto his back and bit back a groan. He was doing it. Dwelling only led to one thing: stronger flashbacks, more intense interactions with the devil in his head. And the devil _was_ only in his head. Whatever this was, wherever he was, it was a cakewalk.

As long as he could keep himself sane.

Sam took another inventory of his surroundings, as if anything had changed since he'd woken. It was dim, diffused light came from somewhere and allowed him to see slick walls. He'd figured someplace wet before his eyes had opened. A constant drip, drip, that dripped hollowly through his prison was a meager counterpoint to the flames and screams in his head. He shivered. The cold seeped into his bones through his clothes. He had no real idea how long he'd been there, but from muscle stiffness guessed it had been several hours at minimum. He shifted to his side; the chains prevented much movement. He could lie, sit, and stand, all of it close to the dank wall. It was disconcerting to think about what might have the strength to get him incapacitated like this. There, at the corner of his abused mind, was the answer but he couldn't quite reach it.

 _"Sam. Sa-am,"_ the voice was whispered, but so loud. _"You know there's nothing in here but me."_

"Shut up, shut up," Sam mumbled and pressed a thumb into scar tissue that never hurt anymore, only itched. It was a focus point, had worked when Dean did it. Illogical, but all he had.

He willed Lucifer's voice away, like he always did. It wasn't real, and neither was the crackle of flames. He was okay. He was fine. He was freezing and clammy and his stomach ached with hunger. Though Sam acknowledged that it was somewhat ironic, he thought a fire, a real one, would be as close to heaven as he was ever going to get. His clothes remained damp, barely dried out from the state they'd been when he'd first come to his senses – soaking wet. The walls appeared sloping, uneven. If he had to guess, he'd say nature made rather than man made. He was in a cave, maybe.

The chain wasn't natural, though. Sam peered down at his left foot. The manacle was rusted, but extremely thick. He wasn't strong enough to break it, and if he'd had weapons before he ended up slightly amnesiac and stuck in a cave, they were gone now. He sat, the rotation time between positions increasing as his muscles stiffened. He wanted to stay as limber as he could, in case Dean wasn't in the same situation as him and would come barreling in any moment. He closed his eyes, leaned his head back and tried to sift through the memories of Hell for memories of where he'd been yesterday.

 _He stood at a distance, watching. He couldn't approach without calling attention to himself, but he needed access to the body to make sure he was right. He thought he had it. He fingered the cell, deciding whether or not to call his brother. In the end, he didn't, not yet. He was having a difficult time with his brother these days. He wanted to be absolutely certain he knew what was going on._

 _New people arrived on the scene, handful of gawkers pushed further back. He was a gawker, he supposed. He frowned at the big van, letters NCIS scrolled across the side. He'd run into them before, a lifetime or two ago. He frowned. The increase from regular cops to federal agency wasn't good. He didn't think he was up for so much heavy lifting. Not alone._

 _He skirted around, giving the scene and the NCIS crew a wide berth. He recognized them. In a time when his memories were mostly fog, the clarity of the older man's face was astonishing, the sound of his voice warning him and Dean to never come to DC again was gruff._

 **  
_"Hey, remember him, Sam? Let's go say hi."_   
**

_Lucifer was right. He wasn't real, but he was right. He remembered himself, possessed, knocking out the man who was headed toward the end of the pier. This was not good. He did not want to go say hi. He turned so hair covered most of his face, got a little closer to the medical examiner and the body, heard partial words and phrases._

 _"…no way to tell … drowning … eyes and fingers gone…"_

 _There was no way to know if the victim was like the others, or if any of them had died in the water. Water was the only true link, so he figured it was no coincidence. He was going to have to regroup, get in touch with Dean, have an actual conversation with him. He slipped away. He noticed the agent on the pier had started moving away, scaling the barrier. Curiosity got the better of him. He checked over his shoulder, saw no one notice him._

 _It took him a bare glance to realize something was not right. The agent had a glazed look on his face. Someone else was there, a man who looked ordinary enough. But wasn't. Wet shoes and cuffs of his pants. He knew this. The agent walked toward the water, gait stilted._

 _"Hey," Sam said. "Stop."_

 _The Nix turned to him, then, and his brain started misfiring in a different way to usual. Lucifer laughed, and murmured sweet nothings in his ear._

 _"Oh, hello," the Nix said. "I didn't see you there, hunter. Come on in, the water's fine."_

 _Sam wanted to go for a swim. He didn't want to go for a swim at all. His fingers, clumsy, tried to call Dean, then text him. Stupid, he thought he might be the biggest idiot on the planet. Lucifer agreed. Sam's feet were wet, then his knees._

 _The cold sucked him under, numbed him._

Sam jerked awake. He'd slumped over, awkward, and now had a painful kink in his neck. So much for staying limber, but that was really the least of his problems. A Nix had him, who knew where, and he had a sinking feeling that he hadn't been able to get the information to Dean.

 _"Aw, Deanie isn't gonna come save his damsel brother,"_ Lucifer cooed. _"I has a sad. It's about time you two make up. I've been in the mood for a little romance after all this dwama."_

Lucifer was getting chattier, something he hadn't figured out how to bring up to Dean yet. He had to at some point. He owed Dean that. He had to survive long enough to make that happen. When squeezing his scarred hand didn't work, Sam flipped his hand and took the skin between his thumb and pointer finger and applied a lot of pressure. The pain was enough to fade Lucifer out, though as he went away it was with an echoing laugh that seemed to bounce around the cavern. Sam blinked. He was in a small cavern. The light was brighter now, and growing more so. A shuffling sound he had heard somewhere behind the ever present cacophony grew louder, realer. He squinted toward the sound.

He'd thought he was in an enclosed space, but as the light grew, so did his perspective. The light, in fact, was coming from a vaguely rectangular fissure in the stone walls. A way out. Or, in. He also realized he wasn't alone. A medium sized human, male, was lying face down. Sam couldn't tell if the guy was breathing. He hadn't heard a sound, but then, sometimes it was difficult to sift out real sounds from imaginary ones. Stress seemed to make it worse, and he counted himself lucky the hallucinations remained auditory. As the light approached, he thought flashlight, the other prisoner became clearer along with everything else. White lettering on the back of his jacket. Of course, the NCIS guy he'd followed right into the water. He couldn't tell if the agent was asleep, or dead.

"Hunter is awake, I see. Humans are so fragile, even you. You are different, but still flimsy."

It was a mild voice, soothing. Sam glanced away from his prison mate, and saw a figure in the room now, holding a lantern rather than flashlight. He could have been a janitor, someone nondescript and in the background. Like so many of the worst of 'em, he didn't look supernatural. The Nix looked like everyone's neighbor, preacher or best friend.

"You have no idea," Sam said.

"I do, though. He's delicate of the body," Nix said. "You are delicate of the mind. I can sense it; it hangs around your head like a swarm of gnats. I can't wait to see how different you taste."

Sam scowled. He didn't remember seeing anything in Nix lore to indicate they did anything except lure people to a watery grave. With the number of deviations to mythology they'd encountered over the years, a flesh-eating Nix wasn't a terrible surprise. It wasn't happy news, though. He really, really wished he could remember if he'd told Dean what they were dealing with before succumbing to the Nix's powerful power of suggestion. He trusted Dean. Dean, after everything, would still come for him no matter what.

"If you're trying to impress or scare me, try again." Sam shifted, tried to contain his shiver. He doubted he was any less fragile than the NCIS agent when it came down to it. "I've survived worse things than you."

Nix said nothing, but smiled, then turned his attention away from Sam. He seemed to glide rather than walk, made no discernible sound. With something to focus on besides _cold_ and _dark_ and _confused_ , Hellsounds were quieter, constant, soft background music. The drip, drip, drip was as loud as ever and as Sam tracked Nix he realized he'd been wrong about it being water. On the far side of the cavern hung a man from crudely installed meathooks jammed under his armpits. Not alive, not by a long shot, but soaked with congealing blood and stained water which dripped into a puddle of blood and piss and shit.

Sam couldn't smell any of it, and for a moment that meant it couldn't be real. Early torture had involved Lucifer mutilating other souls and making Sam watch. Kid stuff. It wasn't until Nix carelessly hacked off a thumb and popped it in his mouth did he realize it wasn't Hell. In spite of all he'd seen and heard and done in his lifetime, flesh eating always made him gag. Closer to him, the rustling sounds of someone waking from a long sleep. The NCIS agent moaned.

"Buddy, you do not want to see this," Sam muttered. "Stay out of it."

Nix grinned at him with obscene, bloody teeth. The NCIS agent rolled over, eyes open but bleary. They fixed on the corpse and Nix for a second, recoiled, but it wasn't until he tracked to Sam that clarity shone in his eyes and he let out a hoarse, awful cry.


	6. Chapter 6

He was working sloppy and he knew it. Bobby would have his hide. So would Sam, eventually, once they started being good again. Once Dean found him, alive. He had punted his intention of extreme stealth and invisibility out the window when he realized how many cameras the NCIS office had. That he’d made it in at all with fake ID was a miracle – he’d had no idea Devereaux had really manufactured ID for every known governmental agency until he found his in their new streamlined fake identity shoebox in the trunk. It was five grand well spent, even if shelling over that kind of cash still stung to think about. After he made it in, he did his best to not look like anyone should recognize him as a recently deceased mass murderer. Sometimes looking like he belonged somewhere he didn’t was easy, sometimes it was difficult.

At this point, his goals were to not raise suspicion, leave the building unnoticed, find Sam, kill a monster and get out of Dodge. The most difficult thing on the list would be finding Sam.

“So, you can’t say for sure the cause or date of death?” Dean asked.

“With cases of bodies submerged in water, salt or fresh, for an extended period, forensic pathology is not easy,” the short little British man told him. Doctor Mallard. “Ensign Yee disappeared a little over a month ago, yet I cannot be altogether certain he died at that time. His body would have seen greater decomposition.”

“The water’s cold, it might have slowed things down.”

Mallard gave a long suffering look to the kid in the glasses, as if to say “why is everyone but me a moron?” The kid shrugged back.

“Or he died somewhere else and was dumped in the water,” Dean said.

Dean suspected that last one wasn’t true. This poor eyeless bastard had gone into the water and stayed there, somewhere, but he didn’t know how it was possible yet, if the doctor was right about him not dying a month ago. Monsters always did the humanly impossible. With the supposition, though, he had hope that Sam was still okay wherever he was.

“It seems most likely.” Mallard narrowed his eyes again. “When did you say you transferred here? I don’t recall seeing you before even in passing.”

That was his cue to leave. Dean took backwards steps toward the door. If the ensign here had showed up on land, then chances were good additional bodies were going to start showing up somewhere he’d have better access and more trusting fools to con.

“Monday, actually. I’m a newbie,” he said. “You’ve been a big help. I’ll check in with you later. Thanks.”

He beat a hasty retreat before the medical examiner or his twitchy assistant could say anything. Dean was cutting it too close here, like he had with raspy-voiced forensics woman. He suspected she was older than she looked, but was something he would have liked to investigate further, given different circumstances.

He’d learned a lot, though. He was definitely looking for a water creature that liked to nibble on eyes, fingers and toes but had no interest in the meaty bits. He wasn’t the walking encyclopedia of weird Sam still managed to be after everything, so he’d have to hunker down for a while, maybe call Bobby to make sure he was on the right track. He could do the legwork himself. Time, though, wasn’t on his side. Who wouldn’t take easy answers over boring research? Sam from six years ago. Dean frowned as he stepped onto the elevator. When he turned to punch the button for exit level, Dean regretted not sliding out the back stairs. There were always back stairs and they should always be taken. He knew this.

“Hi.”

That was all the familiar-looking guy said, all rumpled jacket and silvery hair and face that demonstrated he had seen and done things, as he pushed the elevator button four, waited a moment and then pulled the emergency stop. The elevator cab jerked to a halt and went dim, quiet, and Dean knew who he was. It was on the tip of his tongue, like that other guy he and Sam had saved.

“Whoa,” Dean said, pretending he was far less bothered than he was. “What’s the idea, pal?”

“I’m not your pal any more than you’re an NCIS Special Agent. I’m not sure how you’re alive – last I checked, you’re supposed to be dead, Agent … Smith. Twice. You and that brother of yours.”

The guy knew him better than he knew the guy. Dean hated it when the scale was tipped, or more specifically when it was tipped against him. He also hated it when he was trapped in a five by six box with a law enforcement officer who was on to him.

“Surprise, not dead. Also not a mass murderer, in case you were wondering.”

“I wasn’t.”

Dean didn’t know how to take that. In their line of work, some profiling skills were necessary. He wasn’t as good at snapping to a quick, accurate judgment of people as some, but he wasn’t terrible at it. It was life or death, and a hunter didn’t reach their thirties if they sucked at figuring out who they were dealing with – monsters and humans alike. But this guy, Dean couldn’t get a good bead on him. He resorted to an age-old wisdom: when in doubt and over a proverbial barrel, ask.

“Look, ah. I’m sorry, I don’t …”

“Gibbs.” Gibbs crossed his arms, glared at him. “You and your brother helped one of my agents a few years back.”

“Okay, there it is. I remembered the damn vamps, I just couldn’t remember your name,” Dean said, voice light, bordering on flip. “And how’s that other guy doing, anyway?”

Gibbs’ gaze, already cool, turned to ice. He lunged, pressing his right forearm against Dean’s throat. The move immobilized Dean, as much from surprise at the guy’s strength and agility as from being caught off guard. He was getting soft in his old age.

“Agent DiNozzo disappeared from a crime scene a few hours ago,” Gibbs said. “But you knew that.”

“I didn’t, actually,” Dean choked out. “I swear.”

Gibbs stared him down for what felt like a full minute, then gradually eased the pressure on Dean’s trachea.

“What are you doing here, if you don’t have anything to do with DiNozzo?”

Dean narrowed his eyes. Gibbs had to know. If he remembered them from all those years ago, when he’d _let them walk away_ , then he’d know what might bring them back into this area. He probably didn’t want to remember those details. Some civilians they encountered reacted to their supernatural experiences with an uptick of paranoia, some educated themselves and some pretended nothing had happened. Gibbs had had no direct contact, only that DiNozzo had, so maybe he never knew.

“My brother,” Dean said.

“The guy who attacked DiNozzo twice last year, you mean. That brother?”

“What? No, I …”

Dean fell silent. There was a full year of Sam neither of them had a good record of. Bobby helped piece some of it together, but Sam was Lucifer and then Sam was without a soul, playing Rambo for Samuel and the distant cousins. An entire year. It seemed a stretch, but not impossible, that Sam had run into DiNozzo once. Twice was more improbable. Improbable didn’t seem like a word in the Winchester dictionary.

“It’s a very long story,” Dean said, bone weary and unwilling to rehash the Winchester Family History with a stranger. “One I doubt you would believe, but if my brother did what you said, it wasn’t him.”

All the while his brain raced, Gibbs eyeballed him. He released Dean fully and stepped back. He appeared pissed as hell, tightly wound and ready to offload any second. He paced a few steps, never once removed his eyes from Dean. He didn’t say anything, which was a great technique for making people nervous.

Even Dean. Something about Gibbs commanded attention and respect. In a lot of ways, Dean realized, Gibbs reminded him of Dad, and with that memory came a long-dormant pang of regret he did not have time for. He had to stick to the present. He remembered all of a sudden that Sam had pegged Gibbs as Marine. Made sense, and also made him realize he was never going to get a full read on the guy in the three minutes he had before he was hauled off in cuffs.

“I don’t know what that means,” Gibbs said at last. “If it was him, it was him. Now my agent’s gone and you’re here. It’s hard not to connect those dots.”

“Sometimes dots are misleading.” Dean moved his arms with the intention of scrubbing his hands down his face, but Gibbs bristled like a damned watchdog looking to sink its teeth in his leg. He raised his hands in a classic surrender gesture, and said, “It really is a long story. How long you think this elevator can be stopped before someone notices and interrupts our happy good times chat here?”

Mini-interrogation, more like. Gibbs pursed his lips, still giving him a thorough stink-eye.

“This is a weird thing, like before. Isn’t it?”

There seemed no point in lying, or in withholding information Gibbs looked like he’d bodily yank from his mouth if given the chance. Dean couldn’t blame the guy for being on edge, if his missing agent had gone missing, especially if now he knew a weird thing was involved.

“Yes, it’s a weird thing. Look, our jobs are exactly the same as yours, except the perps we, ah, apprehend have claws, sharp teeth and usually a taste for human flesh.”

That answer didn’t make Gibbs look any happier, not that Dean expected it to. He was starting to wonder, though, why this decisive, tough-as-nails, angry agent of the law had chosen to have a sidebar conversation with a dead mass murderer, presumed in both cases, instead of busting him immediately.

“Do you know what it is?” Gibbs asked.

Dean scowled. “No, not yet. That’s what I’m trying to do _here_. Sam was … Sam’s better at research.”

“I did get the sense he was the smart one. He never let himself get caught.”

Dean clenched his jaw. Sam was smart. Sam was fucking brilliant. Sam was also four fries short of a Happy Meal, and, Dean was sure, caught now. Maybe not caught red-handed breaking into a government facility, but caught nonetheless. Meanwhile, Dean was stuck in an elevator.

“Do you know where they’re being kept?”

“Somewhere, beyond the sea,” Dean muttered too quietly for Gibbs to hear. Then he shook his head. “Not sure. I need to do a little more legwork, but there’s time. I think there’s time.”

“How much time?”

“Hours, uninjured, maybe. Days, but I can’t guarantee condition.”

Gibbs stared at him, unblinking. He took a business card and a pen out of his jacket’s interior pocket, scribbled on it and handed it to Dean.

“You were right before. Here isn’t the place for this discussion.” He frowned. “That address. Eight o’clock. I’m going to want your whole story, unabridged version.”

Gibbs released the emergency stop lever and the elevator jerked back to life. It rolled upward, with Dean watching Gibbs warily and Gibbs not blinking from his resolute stare either. Dean would say it was like a shootout at high noon in the old west, except he’d been there, done that. Gibbs stepped off the elevator when it stopped and strode down the corridor without a backwards glance.

“Hey,” Dean called, “what makes you think I’m going to show up?”

“My gut,” Gibbs said. “And I’ll make it my number one priority to hunt you down if you don’t.”

Call him crazy, but Dean didn’t find the threat idle. His own gut was unsettled by the whole elevator conversation, a distraction he hadn’t needed and couldn’t let get to him. He should have tossed the business card aside and forgotten about Gibbs, because even if the man was as dogged and determined as anything, he’d never find them. But Dean didn’t. He pocketed the card and headed for the door. Now that he was alone again, all he could think about was Sam’s phone in his pocket, the blurred images he’d seen in the forensics lab, the corpse on a slab in the autopsy room. And water. Miles and miles of water.

When he got to the car, he pulled Sam’s phone out, looked at it for a while. He didn’t know why he’d taken it. He had a bag full of Sam’s stuff at the motel, but somehow this stupid thing, a disposable phone, felt like the closest link he had to his brother. He switched it on and found it empty of all data. He didn’t much like the thought that popped into his head after that, and wondered how he could feel like this when Sam was still prickly and quiet around him. He hated the doubt he had that Sam would be sitting there with a lump in his belly if he were the one to be missing.

He shook his head. Stupid. Things hadn’t gotten that bad between them. They were patching things up, again.

Dean shoved the phone back into his pocket and withdrew his own. He hadn’t wanted to impede an investigation for his own selfish gains, though he could have just as easily swiped the salvaged camera the hot forensics tech and her dweeby friend were looking at. He did capture the images they trustingly flashed on the screen with his phone. He thumbed through his received texts, read the garbled ones that were his last contact with Sam and then pulled up the pictures. He thought he got what Sam had been trying to tell him, now. He didn’t much like where it was going, but it made sense considering the submersion of the bodies.

With a few flicks of his fingers, the pictures were on the way to Bobby for confirmation. Dean hoped he was wrong, because he had no idea how he was going to find Sam or the missing agent he’d apparently been recruited to help with if he was right.


	7. Chapter 7

This wasn’t real. It was a nightmare, had to be. Tony screwed his eyes shut and counted to five, slowly, before he opened them again. Those five seconds changed nothing. That hard, angular face he remembered as the stuff of actual nightmares was real, was still staring at him with eyes that didn’t match his memories. He shivered as he took everything in and tried to process. The problem with that was he wasn’t sure he couldn’t still wake up. Sam Winchester blinked and leaned toward him, very real.

“No,” Tony said. Squawked, actually, his throat closing slightly from panic. “Stay back.”

Whatever reaction he might have expected wasn’t what he got. The guy looked confused, then contrite and horrified, and then he slumped against the wall. It was only then Tony realized what else was going on. He had no clue where he was, or why he was there, but the man standing just beyond Winchester was grinning at him with teeth smeared red, bloody. He couldn’t help it. He scrabbled on the ground for a bit, tried to crawl away. This was … this … he was so screwed. He got all of half a foot when progress was halted by a tug against his left ankle. Manacled. He was goddamn manacled to the wall of a dank, smelly cave with two monsters looking at him like he was next on their very unconventional menu.

“Jesus, what are you things?”

Winchester’s face screwed up a little bit, almost looked like he might cry. This wasn’t just a nightmare, it was wrong. Spots started to appear at the edge of his vision, and Tony knew he was about a second away from hyperventilating. His chest felt tight. He tried to regulate his breathing, calm himself down. He managed that, but the pressure in his chest remained. He shivered.

“It appears I was incorrect. He, too, is a bit fragile of the mind,” the cannibal said. “How delightful.”

“You get off on it, don’t you? The fear,” Winchester said, voice deep with emotion – anger or something else. “That’s almost sicker than …”

Winchester’s words trailed away, and all he did was glare at the other guy’s face and then flicked his attention to the corpse.

“Finger food? Mmm. Hunter, you have nice hands.”

Tony lost it when the cannibal (monster, monster, which monster was it of all the things he had read about?) bit the ring finger off the hanging body and nibbled at it like it was a Buffalo wing. He didn’t remember the last meal he’d had, but he’d apparently had a lot to drink recently. Water and bile surged from his gut and spewed out of his mouth. He’d be embarrassed about it later. For the moment, all he could manage was retching until there was nothing left. The sound of his distress reverberated through the small space, and it was almost as if they mocked him.

The soft chuckles that Tony heard after his puke sounds faded didn’t almost feel mocking; they were. Normally, he’d be pissed about that, but here and now all he felt was constriction around his chest and a pit in his stomach the vomit session hadn’t relieved. The hand stroking his hair weren’t doing much to relieve his anxiety either. He didn’t want to look, didn’t know which of them would be worse to have caressing him like he was a favored pet.

“Don’t,” Tony said as he shirked from the touch.

The cannibal stood above him, a fond look in its eyes. Or maybe it was hunger. Tony’s eyes were watery, he couldn’t tell for sure but neither would surprise him. What did surprise him was that deep down he’d thought for sure it was Winchester looming rather than the innocuous (except for the blood, the blood) whatever-it-was monster, and the tiny amount of relief at finding out he was wrong. That relief didn’t last, as the smell of blood and decay wafted around him, had him gagging again. There was nothing left to puke.

“Poor thing,” the cannibal said. “Stress makes humans taste peculiar. You need to calm yourself. Relax.”

Calm himself? Relax? Those were insurmountable tasks as far as Tony was concerned. He immediately wondered if the dead guy had calmed, and how long it had taken to drum even the fear out of him. He thought of Ensign Yee’s last hours, sure that this thing was responsible for him too. If panic made him taste funny, he was never going to not be panicked. Except there was a pinching sensation in his brain, then a Zen feeling flowed into him like some internal tide. He relaxed against the cool stone wall, about as stress-free as Cheech and Chong in every single one of their movies. He didn’t even mind when a fingers coated with congealed blood traced down the side of his face.

“Leave him alone,” Winchester said. “Just stop it.”

Through his utter relaxation, Tony heard a rattle and scrape. A chain like the one attached to his ankle, but he swore he hadn’t moved that time. He frowned, but couldn’t be bothered to investigate further.

“I think you should be quiet,” the cannibal said, “and still like a good boy, now.”

And Winchester did both. Odd. Tony also thought it was strange the way Winchester tried to get the other one to stop feeling him up. If the pair of them were in cahoots, it didn’t make sense. Maybe it was a game of good monster/bad monster. Tony didn’t know, but thinking about it was stressful and that wasn’t good for him, so he quit thinking. He drifted into comfortable numbness, the traces of concern relegated to the fringes of his thoughts but never fully dissipating.

“That’s excellent.”

Wet sounds, more chain rattling. Something heavy dragged across the floor a short distance. Tony wanted to see what was happening, and couldn’t move. This was fucked up. That thought rolled around in the hazy, relaxed mush of Tony’s brain and he wanted to do something about it. He wanted to relax, maybe take a nap, more. He drifted and it was nice, let the noises fade from his attention and that was nice too. The only thing that wasn’t, was the chill seeping into his bones from all sides. He didn’t let it bother him, and after a while, he dozed.

Someone grabbed his shoulder. Tony discovered things were not nearly so nice once he was awake enough to see more than blurred darkness. The face, that face, was far too close. Sleepiness beat a retreat fast as a shot of adrenaline had him trying to scuttle away even though he knew he had nowhere to go. His body, stiff from cold and who knew what else, did not think that a good idea anyway. His head throbbed dully.

“What, no,” Tony said. “Stay away.”

Winchester didn’t glower, loom or threaten. He twitched and pulled back, the expression on his face started as alarmed and then settled into careful blankness. He raised a hand to his face, clamped thumb and middle finger on each temple like he had the world’s largest headache.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” Winchester said from behind his hand. “Believe me.”

“Right, sure. Naturally.”

Tony eased into a sitting position. The cavern remained lit. He glanced around, attention not lasting long on any one spot. Yep, he was still royally screwed. Dead guy hanging. A pile of finger-sized bones in the corner. Empty shackle to his left. Bloodstains fresh and old. A chained foot to his right.

“I always believe mass murderers who are dead and who … are fettered to the wall just like I am.”

“Finally noticed that, huh?”

“I don’t understand. You, you’re…”

“Dead? Not quite, as it turns out.”

“No, this is Halloween and nothing good happens on Halloween and you’re a mon…”

“I know what you think, and it’s not what you think. I remember you from … then.” Winchester dropped his hand and stared at him. “It wasn’t me. It was me, but it wasn’t really me.”

The eyes were wrong. Tony had noticed it before, before the other guy started munching on the dead man. He had no idea what was going on. None of it made sense. He held his head with both hands, thumbs massaged at his temples. He felt like his head was going to explode. No, not exactly. It was like someone had applied pressure to relieve the headache, the rush of blood afterward.

“This is not happening. This cannot be happening to me again.”

“Hey, listen to me,” Winchester said sharply.

Tony heart raced and his head snapped up. That was more like the voice he remembered, and instinct had him pressing his back against the wall as if he could pass right through it to safety. He blinked. As he looked at Winchester, he couldn’t help noticing that the eyes still weren’t the same as he remembered. He was so confused and wanted to not be confused. Hell, he wanted to not be monster food.

“You’re going to have to pull it together, man.” Winchester swept an arm out, highlighting their prison. “This is happening and you’re stuck with me. Look, you don’t have to believe me about before. I don’t blame you, not for a minute. I can’t explain it to you, but I am sorry it happened and it will not happen again. I am not that person. Those people.”

For a fraction of a second, Winchester looked lost himself. Again. The repetition of this phenomenon was not lost on Tony, and it confused him every time. It was like Winchester left the building for a second or two, one of those complex partial seizures Jeanne once explained to him. That was from before, when he’d been a different person. Huh.

“There isn’t time to rehash what’s done, what’s in the past. What I need you to do is trust me now. We’re going to have to work together to get out of here.” Winchester seemed so earnest it was disconcerting. “Or survive long enough for my brother to find us.”

All Tony wanted to say was nonononoNO, but he nodded. He didn’t like it, but if he went beyond his gut’s terrified reaction every time he looked at the guy, right now Winchester was the lesser of two evils. It didn’t mean he was going to drop his guard, at all, ever, around him, but the fact he was a prisoner not captor meant something. Tony didn’t know what, yet. He wasn’t sure he cared. He wanted out and he wanted to not end up hanging from meathooks with his cold blood pooling into his extremities.

“I remember your brother too,” Tony said. “Somewhat more fond memories of him than of you. Almost.”

Winchester continued to confound him by letting out a short laugh. Tony realized how utterly bizarre it was to think fondly of being kidnapped, molested and nearly killed by vampires. He wished, oh, he wished he’d been able to keep that memory tucked safely away behind lies he and Gibbs had told regarding that whole incident. He had to think maybe he was some kind of supernatural magnet.

“Dean leaves impressions wherever he goes,” Winchester said.

“You both do. What are we dealing with here?” Tony pretended he was talking to someone else entirely, a temporary trick. “He looked harmless. He obviously isn’t.”

“Nix.”

“No, I’d really like for you to answer the question.”

“I did.” Winchester started moving and searching around, maybe looking for a way out, even though no one outside the Incredible Hulk could smash the heavy manacles. “It’s a Nix.”

“A Nix.”

“That’s what I said. All I know for sure is Nixes get people to take a spontaneous swim in the water, without the swimming. They use moderate mind control. This whole eating humans thing is news to me, though.”

Tony’s brain itched.

“Mind control. Like when he told us to relax and I suddenly felt like I was in college again and had just smoked a fat one.”

“Not how I’d have put it, but yeah. It seems to require proximity, though, so as long as he’s not here, we or you should be able to think straight,” Winchester said. He paused from all the fidgeting. “Don’t take this the wrong way, because I do remember you. I just don’t remember a name.”

“DiNozzo,” Tony said. Not Tony, never. This was, unbelievably, becoming more bizarre. He was holding a conversation with an undead whatever-he-was that had haunted his dreams for a year, and the guy was freaking him out less and less. “Special Agent.”

“Sam, but you knew that.”

“Yes, unfortunately.” Tony felt like he should contribute something to whatever Winchester was hoping to do. He tugged at his own chained ankle. “I don’t suppose you’ve seen the first Saw movie.”

“It won’t come to that,” Winchester said. “Listen, everything’s kind of a blur after it whammied us. I don’t remember when it left, or where it went. My guess would be to collect the dessert course. I’m not sure we have a lot of time, and as much as I’m enjoying the conversation, we really should focus.”

Tony agreed. What he didn’t know was what to focus on. They weren’t going anywhere. His phone, if it still worked, was in his jacket. His jacket was over in a pile of other jackets, a rather large pile. Souvenirs from years and years of murder.

“If we get out before it comes back, what if it has been out grabbing another person?” Tony said. “We can’t just leave them.”

“We won’t. If I can escape, my brother and I will handle the Nix.”

“You said your brother would find us.”

“He will.” Winchester paused to look somewhere beyond Tony, an intense expression on his face. When he spoke again, it started off to that spot. “He will. I’m not sure how fast he can get here, though. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to stick around any longer than I have to.”

It took them two minutes to realize they had no choice about sticking around. They were stuck. No amount of tugging was going to free the chains from the wall, and short of breaking their feet beyond repair, they weren’t going to slip free. Almost worse, the more he became accustomed to this new reality, the more Tony had a sneaking suspicion his underwater adventures combined with putting off his annual flu shot was why his chest felt tight. He fought the urge to cough.

“I mean, if we only had a wheelbarrow, that would be something,” Tony muttered.

Winchester gave him a funny look, and then without any kind of warning at all, everything went scary in a way Tony never imagined possible, and never wanted to experience ever again in his life. Ever.


	8. Chapter 8

“So, yeah,” Winchester said. “That’s it in a nutshell.”

Gibbs poured himself another and drank it quickly, relished the burn of alcohol down his throat. He wished he could say his bullshit detector was broken, but he couldn’t. He believed that Dean Winchester believed every last word of the story he’d just told. God help the poor bastard. Worse, he couldn’t not believe it himself, because no one was that good a liar and no one would make up something like that. It was possible the tortured young man leaning against his tool counter was fourteen different kinds of crazy, but that same non-faulty bullshit meter didn’t buy that either, not completely. His trusty gut burned, but only from the liquor and from the sheer magnitude of the Winchester family saga he halfway regretted insisting on hearing.

“Drink?” Gibbs asked.

“Mister, I’m a functioning alcoholic. You don’t have to twist my arm.”

Gibbs frowned, but tipped a jar full of dowels empty, blew out the dust and poured Winchester a liberal drink. Hell, Lucifer, Apocalypse, Hell, no soul, angels, demons. Hell. It was a lot to take in, and truthfully sounded about as farfetched as one of those movies DiNozzo was always prattling on about. Tony. A new worry niggled at the edges of his brain now. Not only was his agent missing, but apparently he’d been taken by a monster and was stuck with a potentially unstable and therefore dangerous guy who may or may not have a clue what he was doing while beating someone’s brain in. He watched Winchester with a careful eye.

“I’ve told you everything just like you wanted. Your demands have been met.” Winchester tossed his drink back, and when he spoke again his voice was rough. “Happy?”

“Happy is not the exact word, no,” Gibbs said. “Your story is … well, most wouldn’t believe it.”

“But you do?”

“Yeah. God help me, I do.”

“God’s about the only thing you shouldn’t believe in,” Winchester said. “If something like the god as you know it exists, it’s a giant douchenozzle. All the other gods are giant douchenozzles too, by the way, so it’s not just yours.”

Gibbs poured both of them a second drink, thankful for a high tolerance for himself, irrationally bothered by Winchester’s. He knew the look the man was wearing, and it only ended one way, and that was death. There wasn’t anything he could do about it. He didn’t know why he wanted to. His damned gut was more trouble than it was worth sometimes. He couldn’t fix Dean Winchester. He could only hope he wasn’t too broken to help him find Tony, who he might just be able to fix. His battle had been chosen.

“Good to know. God’s not real,” he said. He narrowed his eyes at Winchester. “You didn’t have to come here, but you did. Now I know I can trust you.”

Winchester glowered, demonstrating how well he knew that he had had to come here.

“I don’t know what spilling my guts has to do with trust,” Winchester said, “but fantastic. Maybe we can move on to more important things.”

“Do you know what’s got DiNozzo and your brother yet?”

Frankly, Gibbs wasn’t sure he wanted to know after hearing what he’d just heard. He knew there were things that went bump in the night. Neither he nor Tony had had extensive conversations about what had taken Tony a few years ago, but he knew. He did research himself and watched his agent carefully, especially for the past year, since the first incident with Sam Winchester. He didn’t have a choice about knowing more now, and he’d bear it if it meant saving Tony.

“Or, let me rephrase. Can you be sure your brother didn’t…”

“No.” Winchester slammed his empty dowel jar on the counter so hard it was a miracle it didn’t shatter. “It’s not Sam. Sam’s not … he’s got his issues, okay, which I think is understandable, but he’s been better these past few weeks. He’s handling it. He’s that same guy who helped save your guy’s ass last time. Hell, if anything, he’s more goody two-shoes than ever.”

Gibbs raised his hands to acknowledge he shouldn’t have suggested that, even though he had to for his own peace of mind. He had wanted a reaction and he was as pleased with the one he got as he could be, given the circumstances. Knowing Tony’s too recent history with Sam Winchester, he had to make sure before he went forward with this. He couldn’t very well make this official NCIS business, so if he was going rogue, it had better be for real. Unfortunately, it was.

“Okay, it’s not your brother, former vessel for Satan.” Who Gibbs was still shaken to know existed just like all otherworldly creatures the Winchesters fought daily. He wished he didn’t know any of it, or at the very least wished Winchester had been able to tell him there was good to counterpoint evil. Well, he’d have to put him and his team on the good side. That had to count for something, even if they were only human. “What is it we’re dealing with, again?”

Winchester slowly lost the murderous look, which had still been better than the dull, blank depression that reset in its place. His brother was probably one of the only things he had in this world, so the extreme reaction was understandable. Gibbs himself felt like Tony was family, but that came nowhere near as close as a sole living relative. He thought of his own father, and held back a wince.

“It’s a Nix,” Winchester said. “Basically, it’s a water creature that looks almost human. The only way you can tell is that the cuff of their pants or hem of a dress or whatever is always wet. Could be standing in the Mojave and still have wet pants. Here, let me show you.”

Winchester fished out his phone, futzed with it for a bit and flashed Gibbs pictures of pictures.

Gibbs recognized them as the last few taken with Tony’s camera at the Yee scene. They were the ones Abby was still working on, so far as he knew, and they didn’t look like much. Water and a blurry figure of a dockworker they were trying to ID and track down as a witness. He reached for his reading glasses, as if they would help, but couldn’t find them. He squinted instead, guessed he could call the darker patches on the uniform water. Then again, the guy was nearly in the water himself, and wasn’t that odd. There wasn’t time for skepticism. If Winchester said this ordinary fellow was actually a supernatural monster, then he was not a witness, but the perpetrator.

“A Nix lures people into bodies of water by simple thought control. Pretty sure that’s what he’s doing to your guy in this photo.”

Something twisted in Gibbs’ stomach at the thought. In the past year, Tony had had some weird coma, apparently compliments of Lucifer and dosed with something Abby hadn’t been able to pinpoint with one hundred percent accuracy after months of trying, apparently compliments of yet another dead guy. He’d heard of being touched by an angel, but Tony seemed to run contrary to that. Touched by a devil. Over and over.

“As in ‘you are getting sleepy?’” Gibbs asked.

“Not hypnosis. It gets in your head, suppresses your fight or flight instinct. Suppresses everything, really. Once it’s got you, that’s all she wrote.”

“But you said you thought DiNozzo was still alive,” Gibbs said, straightening with alarm.

“I do. He … they are. The thing about the supernatural is that they don’t always adhere to what humans have transcribed over the ages. Most stories are friend of a friend, word of mouth, or are the product of people who’ve had the shit scared out of ‘em. Not exactly prime pickings for factual information.”

Made sense, sort of.

“Ducky said that our dead ensign didn’t drown. His lungs were clear, which meant he died before he went under,” Gibbs said. “But that he had ante mortem bruises on his chest consistent with CPR.”

“Your ME’s right. So we think the thing’s luring victims in, but stashing them somewhere alive for fresh, uh, meat.”

Gibbs ignored the meat comment, for his own sanity.

“We?”

“A friend is helping me out with the detail work. Sam’s the smart one, remember?” Winchester said. “Anyway, this friend knows that DC has a fair number of underground tunnels. We were thinking, maybe you might have a faster way to search them. Since I was coming here anyway, and all.”

It was a good thought. Gibbs wasn’t going to pretend he understood what a Nix was based on Winchester’s threadbare description and he also wasn’t going to pretend any of this would see the light of day as far as his job was concerned, but Ensign Yee had been in the water for a long time, yet hadn’t died there. This theory was as good as anything he had to go on. The shock was wearing off and he was starting to think maybe he wasn’t in his right mind, going on a wild goose chase with an unbalanced, probably suicidal self-proclaimed demon hunter. The Winchester brothers were a pair he had never wanted to see again, but they’d proven themselves allies before. He trusted Dean to get him to Tony, if nothing beyond that.

“Give me fifteen minutes,” Gibbs said, and headed upstairs for his phone.

It only took ten for McGee to find the information he needed, and that included questioning why Gibbs wasn’t there with the rest of the team and dissuading him from inviting himself along. No, McGee couldn’t know what he and Tony knew. None of them could. Not ever. Considering he had no idea what to expect (Yee’s eyeless and fingerless corpse flashed in his head), if it was the worst-case scenario, he didn’t want them to know how much worse it truly was. He could only hope his command voice was enough.

“Large drainage pipe close to where we found our ensign, close enough to get victims out of the water and resuscitate if necessary,” Gibbs called down to Winchester, who was still in the basement, talking on his own phone in a conversation that looked tense. “I’ll drive.”

Winchester headed for his own car, and Gibbs let it go without question. If he were in the same situation, he’d want a surefire way to escape into the night. The old junker of Winchester’s slowed them down, but not much. Winchester knew how to drive, and he kept Gibbs’ pace and maneuvering. It still took them the better part of an hour, an hour he didn’t know DiNozzo had. He knew, though, the chance here was greater than if Winchester hadn’t waltzed into NCIS. Hours of captivity were bad. Days were worse.

“What happens when we find them?” Gibbs asked, and knew Winchester would know what he meant. And it was when, not if.

“Depends on a few things, but all possible scenarios end the same. Dead Nix,” Winchester said, moving round to the trunk of his car, where he popped the lid and began pulling out heavy weaponry. “You got blueprints or something?”

“Yeah.” Gibbs pulled out his phone, waved it in the air. “I guess they’re on here somewhere.”

Winchester muttered something about old people that would have been rewarded with a head slap had the words come out of anyone else’s mouth. With the grim set to the guy’s jaw and the hardness in his eyes, Gibbs didn’t want the one time someone retaliated to come when so much was on the line. With a few deft moves, Winchester pulled up the blueprints McGee had sent him. It was a mess of tunnels they’d have to search. Gibbs was banking on the Nix not venturing much past the drainage pipe, which narrowed things some. Not enough. What he wanted was to go down and magically find DiNozzo, alive and with all of his fingers and toes. Magic had to exist, right?

“Normally, I’d say we split up, save some time,” Winchester said. “But I don’t want your life on my head too. Lay on, MacDuff, and damned be him who first cries.”

Gibbs blinked.

“My brother’s the smart one, but I ain’t no illiterate.”

Winchester shot him a grin that almost made it to his eyes and began walking away. The access point McGee had pointed them to wasn’t a direct route to the tunnel system. They’d have to tromp through a fair bit of sewer first. His knees protested. His head told them to stuff it. They hadn’t made it to the manhole cover when Gibbs heard a car approach, two doors open and shut.

“Boss,” McGee said.

Great. This was not good.

“No,” Winchester mumbled to him. “No Scoobies along. Too many people tromping around down there with no clue what they’re doing is not going to help.”

“They won’t back down. DiNozzo’s important to them.”

Ziva and McGee trotted up to him and Winchester, McGee’s steps faltering a bit as he recognized Gibbs’ companion.

“Whu … what? Boss, this is the guy who…”

“I know who he is, McGee,” Gibbs snapped. “I thought I told you to stay put.”

“Not if you believe you have a lead on Tony, Gibbs,” Ziva said, voice as firm as ever. “He is our friend, too.”

“You people have no idea what a serious pain in the ass you are,” Winchester said, angry and rightfully so.

“Says the dead criminal,” McGee retorted. “Oh, I’ve had plenty of time to look you up.”

“All of you, shut it.” Gibbs turned over several options in his head. It was too late to protect his people from implication should this go down poorly. It wasn’t too late to protect them from the darker, less real aspects of it. “He’s right. You should have stayed away.”

“Gibbs, we know what we are dealing with,” Ziva said. “Abby and Ducky both put it together. We are looking for a serial killer. You happen to be with one right now.”

Well, that was easy. Gibbs didn’t even have to make that story up on the fly. Winchester was fairly vibrating with tension now, though, and they could not hash this out now. Ziva and McGee showing up put a wrench in things, but he trusted them with Tony’s life more than he trusted Winchester or his half-scrambled brother.

“How do we kill it, if we have to?” Gibbs murmured for Winchester’s ears only.

“When in doubt, go for the head and don’t stick around to find out if it worked. Leave that to me, if and when the time comes.”

“Good. Good.” Gibbs turned to two-thirds of his team. “Agent Smith isn’t our guy. Tell me you didn’t call in backup.”

“We didn’t, Boss. It was pretty clear you wanted to keep this quiet, and that was before we knew _he_ was involved.”

He worked with good people, no doubt about it.

“Okay,” Gibbs said to everyone. “We go in pairs. McGee, you’re with me. Ziva, accompany … Agent Smith.”

Ziva was about to protest, eyeing Winchester. She’d hold her own against him, where McGee would probably end up on the wrong side of a fist. Gibbs held up a hand.

“I’ll explain later. I trust him.” That was enough. “Keep each other safe. I doubt cell phones are gonna work where we’re going, so we might be cut off from each other. An hour passes, and I want your asses back here for a status report. Got it?”

Two affirmatives and an annoyed glare, and then they were headed underground to find DiNozzo. Alive.


	9. Chapter 9

One second, strips of his skin were being peeled from his back, his legs, everywhere, _everyfuckingwhere_. The next second, that agony was over. The decay and horror scent of the cage blanketed him. Screams echoed, and he vaguely recognized them as his own. Laughter mixed with the echoes and he knew in that moment none of it had been real except the screams. He clutched at his hair, then his hand, anything to make the laughter and memories go away. It didn’t work, but they faded on their own eventually. Not fast enough, it was never fast enough. He was so tired. He wanted one day of normal, his old normal which wasn’t normal at all, the non-normal he missed so desperately.

Sam lay on his side, shivering from cold and possibly shock, let reality come to him slowly. Unfortunately, reality was four thousand miles better than Hell, but still not great. His head ached from more than Lucifer tapdancing all around the inside of his skull. The Nix. He hadn’t had such an intense … episode in over a month. It seemed reasonable that whatever Nix did to control a person might have crumbled defense mechanisms he’d worked so hard to implement. Shakily, he eased himself on one elbow that threatened not to hold him. Once semi-upright, he felt warmth on his upper lip. He didn’t have to swipe at it to know it was blood. The taste of it filled the back of his throat.

“What the hell was that?”

He glanced at DiNozzo, sitting with his back pressed against the wall like he was trying to push himself through it and out of there. Sam’s nose tickled with the partially clotted blood inching down, and he gave up resisting the urge to wipe his arm and hand across his face to clear it. Sam knew the blood smeared grotesquely by DiNozzo’s expression. Then again, DiNozzo looked like that expression had been frozen there for quite some time. He didn’t know how long he’d been … under. Too long. He also didn’t know what Hell looked like from the outside, except he figured it wasn’t any more of a picnic than living and reliving it, even for someone who didn’t like, know or trust him. He shifted his arm and rubbed at the blood some more.

“I have a condition,” Sam said.

Every one of his muscles ached. He might have seized, probably had. This wasn’t good. If Nix came back and did whatever it did to manipulate his mind, Sam wasn’t sure what would happen. How long would it take for the last few months of hard work at coping with Hell 24/7 to disintegrate, until his brain was nothing but crumbs? He was afraid he knew the answer, so it wasn’t going to happen. He couldn’t take doing that to Dean.

“Kid, acne is a condition,” DiNozzo said. “I don’t much care for you, as you know, but I think … I think you stopped breathing for a while there and it goes against my instincts and morals to just let someone die in front of me. I didn’t enjoy watching it and not being able to help. Don’t do it again.”

Sam dropped to the ground when his arm couldn’t take his weight anymore. The panicked noise DiNozzo emitted made him regret the sudden change of position, but he couldn’t help that. He closed his eyes, but flailed a hand to wave the reaction off.

“Jesus, there’s something seriously wrong with you.”

“I’ll be fine,” Sam said, sounding nothing like fine to his own ears, but old habits were hard to break. He said he was fine because he had to be fine; if he wasn’t fine, then he knew Dean wouldn’t be fine. “I need a minute.”

“Sure, take your time. Where’m I going to go?” DiNozzo said with a slight hysterical edge, which he followed up with a laugh. The laugh turned into a hacking cough.

It was in that moment that Sam accepted that they weren’t going to get out under their own power. He felt weak as a kitten, and he recognized DiNozzo’s cough as what it was – symptom of a rapidly moving illness. There was no way either of them could combat Nix influence. If Dean didn’t find them in time, they were going to lose fingers and toes at the very least.

“You sick?” Sam cracked his eyes open and peered over at his fellow prisoner. The light was dim, but he could see DiNozzo looked pallid. Whatever hit him, it hit hard as well as fast. “You don’t look great.”

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d be touched by the concern.” DiNozzo wasn’t going to let it go, but he kept talking. “Had the plague a few years ago. Ever since, I get sick easy. Let the flu shot go too long this year.”

Sam was pretty sure Pestilence hadn’t unleashed the plague in his brief time on Earth. They’d have heard about it. In a strange way, he felt a certain amount of … camaraderie wasn’t the right word … with the guy, knowing he’d apparently faced major life issues himself. Maybe it was that DiNozzo finally didn’t look quite like he thought Sam was about to eat his face. The monster who actually was going to eat their faces might have something to do with that, or maybe witnessing Sam’s weaknesses made him less of a clear and present danger. It was too bad the potential bridge hadn’t happened earlier, when it might have helped them figure a way out. Not that he could blame the guy. To say Lucifer wasn’t fun to see was the understatement of eternity.

“You had the plague.”

“Yes, as in the Black Death. That plague,” DiNozzo said. “Look, this is a very scintillating conversation, but I’m not interested in being your prison BFF. I don’t want to braid your hair and talk about who Molly Sue likes more.”

Sam couldn’t argue that. He only remembered snippets of how they’d met in the past, but it was clear DiNozzo remembered it in detail. What Sam couldn’t ever forget was Lucifer, so he got why DiNozzo didn’t like him, he did. Besides, the guy sounded like he needed to conserve the energy required to breathe more than talk. So, they didn’t say a thing for a long while. It was better, anyway, because the figurative and literal demons in Sam’s head had and continued to sap his diminished strength. He didn’t have a chance at employing on the Nix the same techniques he used to keep Lucifer toned down to a low rumble. That didn’t mean he wouldn’t try anyway. Winchesters never said die, even after death.

“I was possessed,” Sam said. He sounded better even if he didn’t feel it. “Last year, when we … crossed paths. If I could have stopped my body from doing what I did during that time, I would have.”

DiNozzo shifted so he was facing Sam slightly. He studied Sam for a minute, frowning.

“I suppose it would be stupid if I didn’t at least acknowledge it was possible,” DiNozzo said, “considering we’re in the lair of a whatever-you-said-he-was. And you do seem different now, even outside of your ‘condition’.”

Sam wasn’t sure why it was so important to him for this guy to understand he wasn’t a monster. He’d gotten past that need for validation years ago, or so he thought. Maybe it was because if they were going to die before Dean could find them, at least he could make peace with this one person. One person of many he’d damaged along the way, with Lucifer and without his soul. He wasn’t giving up; he was being realistic.

 _“Aww, you softie,”_ Lucifer whispered from his crouched position over Sam’s head. _“You want people to like you. To really, really like you. So sweet. Too bad no one does. Not this guy, not your brother, not that old fart in a trucker’s hat.”_

Sam thunked his head against the cold stone floor, made Lucifer disappear, but the words still haunted.

“I thought for awhile you had to be a zombie or a shapeshifter.” DiNozzo laughed, bitter and wet with encroaching illness. “I think I let Halloween get to me. I hate Halloween.”

“Me too,” Sam said.

For the first time in years, Sam thought about Jessica, how Halloween was the last night he’d seen her alive on this Earth. About how she’d never been his, not really, just a piece on Lucifer’s chessboard. His feelings, though, those were his and they’d been as real as anything.

“Look at that, common ground. Don’t think this means I like you.” DiNozzo coughed hard again. The bout lasted half a minute, which was a lot longer than it seemed. “Ah, we’re not getting out of this, are we?”

Sam chewed his lip, struggled to sit himself. Everything spun for a second or two. He didn’t know what to tell DiNozzo, because it sure didn’t look great. Before he could formulate any kind of response, he heard a scraping sound. Judging from the way DiNozzo stiffened and looked at the opening where Nix had come in earlier, he hadn’t imagined it.

“Jesus, it’s gonna whammy us and eat our eyeballs now, isn’t it?” DiNozzo whispered, fear palpable.

“Probably.” Sam shrugged. “But eyeballs first is definitely the way to go, I think.”

“That is not funny.” But DiNozzo let out another laugh, this one high-pitched with hysteria and exhaustion. “It’s really not.”

The reaction seemed disproportionate to Sam for a second, then he remembered DiNozzo was just an ordinary guy. Hours of captivity at the hands of a monster might as well have been days. Weeks. Sam uneasily thought maybe they’d have days and weeks ahead of them, except Dean was coming. Dean would find him before then, and he could live without a finger or two.

 _“Remember that first time I pulled your thumbs off? That was awesome. You screamed real pretty when I shov…”_

“NO,” Sam said. “Stop, stop.”

He could not deal with Lucifer and Nix, and he knew dealing with Nix might mean he finally cracked once and for all, and maybe DiNozzo wasn’t the only one having unbalanced reactions here.

“What? Who are you looking at?”

No way to explain that, and Sam didn’t have the opportunity to even try. The Nix entered the cavern, with something small dragging along behind it on the ground. Oh shit. Oh _shit_ , no, that was not happening. DiNozzo gurgled and then dry heaved.

“I like a little treat for dessert,” Nix said by way of greeting.

Nix had gone out and snared someone for its final course, all right. By the looks of her, she couldn’t be more than ten. She had on a Halloween costume, a fairy princess or something all in pink tulle and sparkles, muddied, wet and torn now. She didn’t look like she was breathing, which was confirmed when Nix leaned over and began pressing on her chest. It didn’t take long before she coughed and turned to the side, vomited up a large amount of water. The moment she opened her eyes, she began to cry.

“Shitshitshitshit,” DiNozzo murmured and shuffled closer to Sam. “This is not going to happen. We are not allowing this to happen.”

Nix stroked the little girl’s hair while she hiccupped and sobbed, speaking too softly for Sam to hear him. He figured it out quickly, when the girl stopped crying and closed her eyes. Kids must be easy to manipulate. Sam was relieved for the small favor, though it was a temporary one at best.

“She is sweet like honey.”

“You think that’s cute?” DiNozzo snapped to life, scrambling to his feet and lunging as far as his chained ankle would allow. “You are a sick son of a bitch.”

Nix turned to DiNozzo, body language projecting anger, aggression. So far, all they’d seen from it was that eerie calm and smugness. Whatever it was doing, it made DiNozzo stumble into the wall and slide down. Sam knew what he had to do, and it was likely a suicide mission. It might be the time Humpty Dumpty couldn’t be put back together, but that girl. That small, innocent little kid, she was worth it. DiNozzo was, too. He was ready for a massive setback, or, he had to be honest, the rest of his life in assisted living for those in a persistent vegetative state. Lucifer laughed at the very idea, and assured him no matter how mushy Sam’s brain got, he’d always be there.

“You don’t want to start with him,” Sam said. “Hey, listen to me, listen to me.”

It was moderately surprising when Nix stopped, DiNozzo gasping slightly and straightening. Surprising, but good. The longer Sam could keep the focus on himself, the better.

“He’s sick. He probably doesn’t taste very good, and you said you couldn’t wait to see what flavor I am. So, come on.”

Nix leaned into DiNozzo’s space, sniffed his hair, then ran its tongue along the side of his face. DiNozzo gagged repeatedly and tried to scoot away while Nix smacked its lips a few times and tilted its head in consideration.

“You are correct. Such a shame. I can’t eat that,” Nix said. “He’s gone bad.”

Sam realized his miscalculation about a second before Nix took a path he hadn’t considered, pulled DiNozzo up by the neck. If DiNozzo wasn’t food, there was no reason to keep him alive. Sam shouted, he was sure he did, as DiNozzo fought weakly against the strong grip on his throat, the rattle of the chain as his legs kicked. He knew it wasn’t possible, but Sam swore DiNozzo managed a glance over to him, accusatory, like he’d known all along Sam was a monster too. Which, of course, he had probably never stopped thinking.

Sam got to his feet. He had to do something, anything. Nix shifted as DiNozzo fought, though considerably weakened already, bringing them closer. Sam inched closer, going slow only to not alert Nix.

“Hey,” he shouted.

Nix swung around. Before it could employ any of the mind control on him, Sam lashed out with all of his somewhat-weakened power. He caught Nix in the throat, hard enough he heard something crunch, and the monster released DiNozzo, went down hard. Sam kicked it in the ribs for good measure. It didn’t move, but he knew it wasn’t dead. Things were never that easy. The exertion left him trembling, panting for breath not quite as hard as DiNozzo.

“Not so tough without your mind control, are you?” Sam muttered, and gave his attention to the wheezing DiNozzo. “You all right, man?”

DiNozzo clutched his throat, breathing ragged, but at least he _was_ breathing. He shot Sam a wild-eyed look, gratitude and residual fear – for Nix as well as for Sam himself. Sam was going to have to live with that. Live, being the operative word.

“For now. T-thanks,” DiNozzo said. “Did you kill it?”

“No, but what do you say we see if the bastard’s got a key for these shackles and get that little girl out of here before she wakes up?”

“I am one hundred percent in favor of that,” DiNozzo said, with a ghost of a smile. “As long as we get rid of that thing while we’re at it.”

Sam would have liked nothing more. Of course, it was at that moment his body decided, no, he was done.

“Gimme one minute,” he said.

Sam’s vision tunneled at an alarmingly fast rate, the floor jarred his bones as he faceplanted onto it.


	10. Chapter 10

“We are not going to find Tony here,” Ziva David said.

It was one of those statements that could also be read as a question, as if she were asking him to confirm or deny the words. The problem was, Dean couldn’t deny and he didn’t want to confirm. After five hours of searching, not even counting the wasted time of regrouping after the first short hour, they still had a long way to go. With each minute that ticked by, Dean lost more faith, which was not a commodity he had an extensive supply of anyway.

“We’ll find them,” Dean snapped, because there was nothing else he could say. “Both of them.”

Dean didn’t know why he’d thought it would be easy. Somewhere in the back of his (delusional) mind, he’d thought he and Gibbs would go into the tunnel system, find Sam and boom, be done. Then Professor Nerdly and Wonder Woman showed up and that was when it had started to veer off that unrealistic path. It had nothing to do with them, other than more civilians in the mix was never good, no matter how capable they were. The saddest thing about it was how long he’d clung to hope that around the next corner, he’d find Sam; every corner, for two solid hours. There wasn’t so much as a trail of evidence to follow, no sounds out of place for a sewer. Even after the two hour mark, he’d still fooled himself into believing it on a lesser level. He was still fooling himself.

In a way, it was probably fortunate to not run into the Nix. Dean was ninety-nine percent sure Ziva had no idea what she was getting herself into, and he wasn’t about to mention that the serial killer she thought she was hunting would Jedi Mind Trick her into the ocean if given the slimmest of openings. She looked like she could hold her own in hand-to-hand, but that was with people. Monsters were a whole different story. Besides all that, concern for her missing friend made her bitchy, and he wasn’t sure that wasn’t a natural state, only amplified just for him. Aside from an occasional appreciative glance at her bangin’ backside, Dean didn’t much like being stuck with her for the search.

“We had to have missed something,” Dean said.

“Like what?” Ziva flung her hands out. “A secret passage? A trail of croutons?”

“Croutons?”

Croutons went on salads. Sam ate salads. Some things, at least, never changed. At the end of all things, Dean would still know what Sam ate for lunch, unless Sam turned into a vegetable himself and then salads would be cannibalism. Maybe it was his brain that was on the fritz, not his brother’s.

“What’re you …” Then Dean realized what she’d meant, how her voice had an accent that might make things get lost in translation. “Oh, you mean breadcrumbs.”

“What is the difference?” Ziva said, sounding like someone weary of arguing semantics. “We are due back to meet with Gibbs and McGee again.”

“You go ahead and do that, sweetheart,” Dean said. “I’m going to keep searching.”

He made it two steps. Later, he’d blame it on his concern for Sam. Truthfully, Dean had not expected the vicious arm twist, flip and knee to the back, despite definitely honing in on the badass vibe that rolled off of Ziva. It was vaguely embarrassing to find himself face down in a sewer, arm about to be wrenched off. It was also vaguely arousing, in a sick sort of way.

“I don’t understand why Gibbs trusts you,” she hissed in Dean’s ear. “I did not like anything about you the moment I saw you, and that feeling has only grown over these long, long hours. But, Gibbs does trust you and you will not be so dismissive of his directives while I am around.”

She was a tough little thing, Dean gave her that. After that momentary acknowledgement, he wrested himself free easily, flipped over and flipped _her_ onto her back, his knees jammed into her armpits. A flash of honest surprise flickered in her eyes before they darkened.

“This is not disrespect. You can check in with him just fine by yourself.” Dean eased back, only a little because now he knew what Ziva was capable of. He didn’t know why she hadn’t already bucked him off. He was almost sure she could. “My brother is down here. My brother, you get that?”

“I do,” Ziva said. Something sparked in her expression. “And what if Gibbs and McGee have found them by now? Hmm?”

That … he hadn’t considered. Damn it, and the point was a good one. Dean could continue on his own, probably get lost and spend hours wasting time. He sat more heavily on Ziva’s stomach, grinning at her oofed exhalation. It was over the top I’m-the-alpha-here, but he didn’t care. He wasn’t sure what to do now, though. He couldn’t leave. He couldn’t not leave, either.

“This is stupid,” Dean said.

“Perhaps. But we are literally against the wall here anyway. It is not like we have to make a full exit.”

Once they’d gotten through that first hour (too long ago), it was easier to come up with a more cohesive search pattern when they did their initial sit rep. They’d still split up, but remained in close proximity, which was what they should have done in the first place. The tunnels branched off at intervals, with larger central hubs along the way. Dean figured they could go on for days, though they’d contained the search so far to tunnels that led the direction of the water. He was starting to think the docks were a random hunting spot, that the Nix had grabbed DiNozzo and Sam and hauled them somewhere else. Somewhere far, far away, where they were being nibbled on like fish food.

Gibbs and Professor Nerdly were waiting for them when they arrived, Gibbs looking stone cold pissed. Apparently, the pair of them hadn’t taken a few extra minutes to duke it out like Dean and Ziva had and were right on time. Though, Dean noted, McGee was smudged with dirt from head to toe. He was sure a normal person would wonder why. He wasn’t normal, and even if he was, he didn’t care what the story was. Ziva dusted off the seat of her pants when she looked at McGee. Dean smirked at her and very consciously didn’t make a move for the dirt he was probably wearing as well.

“Damnit,” Gibbs said when he saw them empty-handed.

Dean clenched his jaw, his dark mirth fleeting. He didn’t know any of these people, yet he somehow also knew Gibbs wouldn’t drag out this chat. Gibbs didn’t seem the type to drag anything out, all business all the time.

“What should we do, Boss?” McGee said.

Gibbs glared at him in response, which made Dean believe it wasn’t the first time the question had been asked. While McGee cowed, Gibbs looked like he was weighing the options. Dean knew what the options were and he didn’t much care for them, either. Gibbs turned to him.

“Is it possible you and your friend were wrong about this? We can’t afford to waste time.”

 _Any more time_ was heavily implied. Dean knew that. He knew it better than any of these civilians, even Gibbs, who’d had a brush with the supernatural before. A brush was nothing like an entire miserable life and multiple deaths. The plain and simple truth was, if he and Bobby were wrong about the Nix holing up in these tunnels, then Sam and DiNozzo were as good as dead. There were no other places to look where they’d be found in time to save them, and no. Just, no. He wasn’t allowing that to be an option.

“No,” Dean said. “They have to be here.”

None of them believed him. That was okay. It was better he do this on his own anyway. Dean did not have the energy or the heart to both hunt a monster and keep three other people alive. He didn’t even want to bring up the possibility there was a nest of Nix; it was too much. He wished he’d been able to wait on Bobby for backup with this. For all he knew, Bobby would show up anyway, before he could find Sam.

“Boss, you’re not really going to take this guy’s…” McGee said.

Gibbs halted the words with a raised hand and another glare. The look he gave Dean, though, was part dread and part apology.

“I get it,” Dean said. “It’s not personal, and you’re playing by different rules. You gotta do what you gotta do, and I gotta do this. I’ll let you know when I find them.”

A hand on his arm was the only thing that stopped him from walking away without any real plan or direction in mind. Hell, he’d re-search every last square inch if he had to. They’d missed something. The hesitation in his gut was gone. He knew. He knew Sam was there, somewhere.

“Hey,” Gibbs said. “Good luck.”

Dean didn’t remind Gibbs that nothing their normal world methods could come up with would help them when it came down to it. Gibbs got it. The other two didn’t, and Dean half figured Gibbs wanted to pull them away before a supernatural encounter. He couldn’t fault the instinct to protect, or the logic behind that. He knew firsthand it was bad enough to have knowledge of evil, let alone watch someone previously innocent to it suddenly see. It wasn’t a good feeling. His brain went to Lisa and Ben and sometimes he wished oh he wished he’d had Castiel wipe his own mind clean of them. Mentally bringing Castiel up only made his lost friend occupy his thoughts, seamlessly sliding Lisa and Ben to the side. It was a vicious, fast downward spiral and that was why it was crucial he find Sam.

“Thanks,” Dean said. “If it’s in my power, I’ll get your guy for you.”

“I know.”

Of course Gibbs did. Dean gave the stone-faced Gibbs a nod and turned, knowing that no matter what happened, he wasn’t ever going to cross paths with the man again.

“Gibbs,” Ziva said. “Can you hear that?”

Except. Except this path-crossing might not be done.

Dean heard what Ziva called to their attention. It hadn’t been there a moment ago, and it increased in volume, not much, steadily. A soft scrape. A quiet rumble. No, it was a voice, soft and muffled. Sam, Sam. All of them moved, as if something had attached them to the same string and pulled. Dean took point position, holding a hand up to signal Gibbs to keep his people back if he could. The last thing any of them needed was to be mass-whammied by a Nix or family of Nixes.

Beyond the general direction, wasn’t immediately apparent where the sounds came from, the hub of tunnels serving as a bit of an echo chamber. It took Dean a full minute to determine which way to go, a tunnel Gibbs and McGee had already searched. He knew it. He knew something had to have been missed. The tunnel was empty. They crept, two on each side, as quiet as possible. The voice was definitely getting closer, as if approaching, and Dean could tell when they’d gone too far when the sounds faded again. They backtracked until they picked up the sounds.

“Boss,” McGee whispered. “I’ve got something.”

The something was a draft of air, barely noticeable even when standing right in front of it. No surprise they hadn’t felt it on the first search, or seen the small fissure in the tunnel wall, too straight to be natural. Dean shot Ziva a look. Secret passage, didn’t that just beat all? He raised a finger to his lips. They still didn’t know what they were going to find behind the mystery door. He pulled out his switchblade, and had barely flicked the blade open when he found himself kissing the wall, knife hand twisted up his back.

“Seriously,” he said to Ziva. “You think _now_ is when I’d pull the psycho killer moves on you?”

“Sorry,” she said, not sorry at all. She did release him. “It was an involuntary reaction to sudden appearances of weaponry.”

McGee gave a nervous little giggle, which garnered him a slap to the back of the head from Gibbs.

Well, if they’d expected any element of surprise, it was gone now. Dean rubbed his shoulder, gave Ziva a glare and then retrieved his knife from the ground. He stuck the blade in the small crack, ran it up and down to see if there was any way to lever it open from this side. There had to be. Not much point of a secret passage only opening one way.

Gibbs kicked randomly at the floor and the base of the wall. His foot contacted with something that gave and, with a scrape, the door sprang open.

All four of them plastered themselves to the walls on either side of the opening, Dean conveniently or intentionally closest to it. He stowed his blade and pulled out his Glock instead, slow enough to not trigger Ziva’s made-up involuntary reflex. He raised his left hand, counted to three with hand gestures only. He pushed the door further open with some effort – it was heavy- and ducked into the new passage, which was roughly hewn. More cave than tunnel. He didn’t have time to care about the whys and whats, except for the what shadowing the narrow area about forty feet down, around a soft bend. Human shaped, but hunched, bulky. The Nix, even from blurry photos, was slim, short. There was a tiny snuffle and sob and the shadow shifted. Two people, one carrying another.

“It’s okay, sweetheart,” a man’s voice, distinguishable now, said. “I know this is gonna lead us somewhere warm and safe, okay? It’s got to. ”

It wasn’t Sam. Dean’s stomach fell.

“Tony.”

All three NCIS agents said it at the same time and began moving more quickly, but were still cautious. Dean followed. They hadn’t yet reached the bend when the shadow’s owner rounded it, at the same time letting out a hacking cough that had him double over.

Gibbs got there first, grabbed DiNozzo by the elbow. His expression somehow became grimmer when DiNozzo jerked free with a horrified cry, stumbling heavily into the wall and almost dropping the little girl in his arms.

“DiNozzo,” Gibbs said. “Hey, it’s us. It’s just us.”

DiNozzo looked ill to the point of a gray tinge noticeable even in the dim natural light, and harsh beams of flashlights being turned on. The little girl had her arms wrapped around his neck tightly, her legs around his torso.

“Boss,” DiNozzo said, full of wearied surprise. “I am so glad to see you.”

Then his knees started to buckle. Gibbs held him up on one side. Dean managed to grab the other before McGee could. Ziva easily pulled the little girl free, held her exactly the same as DiNozzo had been. Words gentler than Dean had imagined possible flowed from her mouth, for the little girl, but her eyes were locked on DiNozzo with blatant worry.

“Where’s my brother?” Dean asked, hoping like hell DiNozzo would have the first clue what he was talking about. He shook the other man slightly even as he held him up. “Where is he?”

“Easy,” Gibbs said, all about protecting his man, but also shooting him a sympathetic look. “He’s obviously sick.”

To Dean’s surprise, DiNozzo wrenched free from Gibbs, swinging slightly so he clutched onto Dean only. Up close, the guy looked like hell. In one piece, but that piece was ragged. He gave a phlegmy cough right into Dean’s face.

“Stuff. Monster. Hansel and Gretel,” DiNozzo whispered, then his eyes rolled into the back of his head and he was going down.

Gibbs and McGee helped ease him down. Dean heard the whoosh of blood in his ears, and beyond that heard Gibbs snapping out orders about ambulance and for Ziva to get the sobbing little girl the hell out. He wouldn’t say he didn’t care about DiNozzo or the girl, but he cared about finding Sam more, so he was focused on what DiNozzo had said. It didn’t make sense, until he caught a glint of silver a few feet down. He moved toward it briskly, found it was a miniature 3 Musketeers candy bar, and a few feet further down, another piece of candy.

For the first time in a long time, Dean was glad disaster had struck on this day of the year. He swung back toward the NCIS reunion, saw Gibbs looking at him. Dean couldn’t stick around for the cavalry no matter what, but especially not now. Gibbs waved him off. Dean nodded, knowing this time _was_ going to be the last time they saw each other. Both of them had to be glad for that.

He followed a trail of Halloween candy and hoped Sam would be alive at the end of it.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!

_“I like the water. The sound of it is very soothing.” The man half-turned, spread his right arm out. “Don’t you like water?”_

 _“You know, I really do,” Tony said, and his voice rang hollow in his own ears._

 _“I’ll bet it’s nice in there. Why don’t you go on in?”_

 _Tony wasn’t sure how they’d gotten under the pier. He wasn’t sure of anything but the lapping of water against the rough shoreline and the overwhelming urge to walk into the sea. So, that was exactly what he did. The water was icy, bit into his ankles, then his calves. At knee level, he gasped and took a step back instead of forward, confused to find himself in the water._

 _“Let it wash over you,” someone told him. “Let it numb you.”_

 _His legs moved, even as his brain fumbled for clarity. Numb was good, easy. Tony wanted that. He sloshed forward, hands falling to his sides. Something clattered, but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except submerging into the cool, dark water, breathing it in. It was ice in his lungs. Everything was gloomy, dim and he couldn’t see right. He felt pressure all around, then nothing._

 _Tony came awake, coughing and groaning. Intense weight in his chest, the ozone tang of pure oxygen snaking into his lungs, warmed but still somehow foreign, difficult to take. Strident ringing, shouts. Hands everywhere, voices telling him to breathe through it. Keep breathing, DiNozzo, keep breathing. He had to, so he did. Blue light, antiseptic smell. Kate’s voice. He wasn’t where he had been, and he was so confused. He didn’t remember being moved. He didn’t remember where he’d been and he didn’t know where he was now. Here was years ago, and that wasn’t possible. Kate was dead and he did not have the plague. He closed his eyes._

 _“Tony, listen to me,” Gibbs whispered in his ear, sounding awfully real. “You listening? You will not die.”_

 _“I got you, Boss,” Tony choked out._

 _“Good.”_

Deep in his throat, Tony tasted blood and mucus and he was sure he was going to die despite the promise. He instinctively turned to his side as he coughed weakly, his body preparing to expel unwanted substances.

“No, you don’t,” someone told him.

It was Gibbs again. It was real and Gibbs was there. Gibbs was always there, like the security blanket he’d had until he was the embarrassing age of ten. When he was ten and his father was around for an extended stay (for him, that was two weeks), the blanket had disappeared. Even then, he’d known he was too old for it, but he missed it anyway and the comfort he got from it he didn’t get from anywhere else. His father never mentioned it, but Tony knew he’d taken it. Probably burned it.

“I’m not going to disappear on you, DiNozzo. I can’t guarantee I’ll always be here. Not even I can live forever, but now that we do believe in spooks, well, maybe forever isn’t out of the question…”

Tony cracked an eye to check if his boss had cracked. He understood the words, but they made little sense. Nothing did. He didn’t know what happened, the dreams lingering in his head, one too real and one … he hadn’t gone into the water recently, it was oh, oh, he had, of course he had. The lines around Gibbs’ eyes were deep, ravines of concern. For him. Okay, that was kind of nice, a positive to combat the memories trickling into his sluggish brain about supposedly dead, mostly evil or something Winchesters and monsters that looked like Average Joes, hiding a sick hunger for human flesh. He shivered, though his skin was overly warm and tight.

“Don’t joke about that,” Tony croaked. “You’re scary enough in the flesh and blood.”

Gibbs relaxed a little bit, the concern not leaving his eyes completely, but he did smile in that way that was both amused and shark-like. He’d probably enjoy the hell out of incorporeally headslapping Tony for being a smartass.

“You with us for good this time, DiNozzo?”

Déjà vu, again.

“Sure, Boss. With you.” Tony sounded like he wasn’t with anything, but there wasn’t much to do about that. His lungs ached. He could tell he was still pretty sick, which meant he’d been really, very sick not that long ago. “How long?”

“Almost a full week. You took in a lot of filthy water, and apparently you skipped your flu shot this year. That’s a recipe for disaster, right there.”

“Oh, man.”

Tony closed his eyes again, tight. Bits and pieces, more fragmented than the dream that pulled him awake had been, came to him. It was a mix of hospital delirium, swirled faces and medicalese, and there. The cave. The monster. Winchester keeling face first, having no choice but to leave him. Finding his weapons, killing the monster. A terrified little girl with hair that smelled like honey and seaweed as he carried her to freedom. He knew now why it felt like an anvil sat on his chest, but for a second he swore he could feel her little legs wrapped around him, her arms pulled tight around his neck.

He only realized he was hyperventilating when steady hands affixed a mask to his face, straps tugging at his hair. Tony opened his eyes and saw blurry faces above, none of them Gibbs. Hospital staff. Okay, okay, he was okay. He knew the drill, took shallow breaths (all he could manage) and waited for them to be done poking, prodding and prognosticating his prognosis. It seemed to take forever, but then, it was also over fast. They left him weak as a kitten and barely holding onto consciousness, with orders to keep talking to a minimum for the next day or two.

That went promptly out the window when Gibbs resumed his seat on the chair next to Tony’s bed.

“Why does that shit always happen to me?” Tony moaned and looked at Gibbs. “Tired of waking up in a hospital.”

“That was … you remember it all.”

Tony stared at Gibbs, unblinking. The mask obscured his view a bit, but he wasn’t going to move it. No need to piss off the nurses; been there, done that, got the sponge bath with a nurse who’d surely dunked her hands in ice water first.

“Can’t forget.”

Gibbs pursed his lips. Somehow, Gibbs knew everything. That was what that look was. Tony didn’t know how Gibbs knew. He decided now wasn’t the time to bother asking. He himself didn’t remember a whole lot beyond stumbling through dark tunnels, having chosen a direction opposite to where the Nix had consistently entered. It had seemed prudent to not go that way. The last time, it had come in with a mostly dead little girl.

“The girl?”

“Safe, healthy and at home,” Gibbs said.

“Good. ‘s good,” Tony said. He thought about adjusting the mask, which was digging into his cheeks, but couldn’t raise a hand. “Winchester?”

“Don’t know for sure.” Gibbs stood, massaged the back of his neck. “By the time we got you and the girl help, there wasn’t a trace of them. All that was left was the one poor bastard that didn’t make it, trophies of thirty other victims and the dead … serial killer. ”

If Gibbs found that disturbing, his expression didn’t reveal it.

“Jesus.” Thirty? He didn’t understand how something could have killed so many, unchecked. Tony did, however, understand what Gibbs was telling him. The image of the Nix with a hole in the middle of its forehead flashed in Technicolor, the scent of gunpowder sharp. No regret there, only satisfaction. “That’s some … serial killer.”

“Yep. You did the only thing you could. Heroic, they’re saying in the papers.”

“Aw, shucks.”

Flattery would normally trip all his triggers, but Tony knew he hadn’t done much; he’d shot a man…thing when it was already down. He also knew he’d be deader than dead right now if not for Sam Winchester, the mentally brokedown pseudomonster who had terrorized his dreams for over a year and made him paranoid about things most people did not lose sleep over after they hit puberty. He didn’t know why he cared if the kid had survived. Not having closure set him on edge, made him nervous, but not in the way it would have before. The threat was never going to go away, but the worry was worrying. He shouldn’t worry about Winchester.

“I have a good feeling they got away,” Gibbs said.

“Huh?”

“The Winchesters.” Gibbs frowned at him. “I doubt we’ll ever see them again.”

“Thank Christ,” Tony said.

“Won’t argue that.” Gibbs smiled, briefly. “I had to rein Ziva in pretty hard, though. Of course, she has no idea that both of ‘em saved your ass more than once. She wanted to lead a manhunt to find them.”

“How’d you manage that?”

“Reminded her about what the second B in my name stands for.”

Tony laughed, fogged up the mask and the condensation dripped onto his face. That wasn’t all he got for it, either, a ragged cough rumbled up. It didn’t last too long, but by the time he’d regained partial use of his lungs, he was wiped.

“You should get some rest, DiNozzo. You look like yesterday’s shit.”

Great idea. Disgusting way of saying it.

“Feel the love,” Tony mumbled, already well on his way out.

Tony almost didn’t feel the strong hand grip his shoulder as he gave into exhaustion, but he did and from that alone knew one way or another it was going to be just fine.

 **NCISPN**

The drip was the first thing Sam consciously registered, that wet, familiar sound. His brain felt liquefied, like it might be leaking through his nose onto the cold floor. But, no, the drip was from a greater distance. Water from the ceiling, bodily fluids from the corpse. Maybe his brain wasn’t making any sound and maybe it wasn’t oozing from his left nostril. Something was, at any rate, a slight trickle tickled his nostrils and made him want to jerk upright, brush it clear. More blood, more … the Nix. Not even a burst of adrenaline at the thought of the monster got him moving. He wasn’t entirely sure he was fully awake.

 _“Someone cooked your goose,”_ Lucifer whispered. _“Someone scrambled your eggs. It’s beautiful.”_

Sam moaned, but he didn’t. No sound, his mouth didn’t open. He was … stuck. He’d been there before, brain alert but body uncooperative. He imagined that from the outside, he looked catatonic. He wasn’t. He was. He didn’t know anything except when he was like this he was at the mercy of memories too strong to be memories only.

 _“Isn’t it great?”_ Lucifer’s rotting face popped in front of Sam, wearing a conical, brightly colored hat. He blew into a noisemaker, then grinned. _“It’ll be just like old times.”_

No, oh no, no, no. Sam could not backslide. The threat of Lucifer being more than a thematic movie score to his life was motivation. He would not linger in this limbo. He managed to turn his head, pressed his face into the floor. A jolt of discomfort, maybe he’d broken his nose. The pain was sharp enough to clear Lucifer’s voice, at least for a moment. He squeezed his eyes tighter, so all he could see was faint starbursts instead of the horrors of Hell. It didn’t work completely, but then nothing did. Life was about small victories. Life was about Dean and having his brother close in case, in case, because they were all they had, making things as close to right as he could.

“Take that,” Sam said, and that he did vocalize. He sounded drunk, slurred the words. Tongue was thick. He spat, or let bloody saliva dribble from his lips. That was temporary. He was not ending up a drooling mess in a padded room. “You bastard.”

Somehow or another, Sam got his hands flat on the ground and pushed up with meager strength. Aside from Lucifer’s taunts and the dripdripdrip, it was quiet. He couldn’t avoid it forever, so he opened his eyes. He was the only living boy in the cavern. No girl. No DiNozzo. Dead Nix. He’d whacked the thing in the head, but he could take no responsibility for the kill shot. He understood why he was alone, had some sort of strange pride in DiNozzo for getting the girl out. Sam didn’t want to stay there. He didn’t know which way was out. He knew where the Nix had entered, and assumed it led to water.

He picked the opposite direction, a slight opening he hadn’t noticed before. Sam got to his feet, stuck close to the wall and started moving. He nearly lost it inching by the hanging, rotting corpse, too Hell-like. Lucifer laughed, faintly, though, as if from far away. Locked away, good, good.

 _“Sam, Sam.”_ Lucifer chortled. _“Sammmm.”_

Sam leaned heavily against the wall, clamped his hands over his ears. It was stupid, an impulse he fought nearly every single minute of the day. His defenses were worn too thin, and no one was here to see him go out of his gourd. He hunched over, prepared to just give in, give up, if only for a little while, though he knew a little while could turn into forever without him knowing it. The reprieve he had earlier was fast dissolving into his own special brand of insane.

“Sam!”

That voice. That wasn’t Lucifer, but it might actually be Lucifer. Sam never knew until he did. He pressed the butts of his hands into his skull. A minute, that was all he needed. He didn’t get it. A cold hand on the back of his neck had him surging on legs that had no interest in carrying him.

“Hey, hey, I gotcha.”

Hands, hands grabbing his own, squeezing and then shifting as a shoulder to his armpit braced him up. Dean, it was really Dean. Sam sagged, allowed his brother to catch most of his weight. He was just so damned glad to see Dean, nothing else mattered. He scrabbled his hands against the very solid arms, shoulders, torso. He was freaking out and couldn’t stop.

“Jesus,” Dean muttered. “I can’t … not this. Sam. Sammy.”

Sammy. It was okay. They were okay. Dean.

“Dean,” Sam whispered. “The Nix. Fucked. Head. Setback.”

“Yeah.”

Dean sounded angry and heartsick all at the same time, in that one little word. It was strange, knowing things and knowing nothing at all.

“Sorry.”

“It’s not your fault, damnit.”

Sam smelled … chocolate, sickening sweet in contrast to decay and dirty water. He didn’t know what that was all about, choked a little.

“It looks as dead as dead can get now,” Dean said. “and we have got to go. Feds’ll swarm this place in less than an hour. I need you to walk, Sam. I cannot carry your heavy ass.”

He could do it. Dean was here. Sam nodded again, but he couldn’t take all of his weight. It’d have to do, it did. Dean held him firm, like the old times both of them wanted but couldn’t quite remember clearly enough to recreate.

“Okay, okay, okay,” he said.

Sam drifted as they went slightly above a snail’s pace. To him, the trek took hours and it was only seconds until Dean propped him up against the old junker that was not the Impala. He missed the car, a lot more than he ever thought he would. They had nothing to call a home now. Bobby’s was gone. The car was gone. Gone, gone, his brain was gone.

“Hey, your brain is fine. I won’t let it be anything else,” Dean said, strident and directly in his ear. “And we’ve got Bobby. We’ve got each other. That is all the home we need. You hear me?”

Sam’s face was pressed against glass, somehow already in the passenger seat. Buckled in. Buckled, when they never usually bothered. He nodded, tried to agree though he wasn’t sure he did, and the dark, smoky curls edging his vision turned into complete darkness.

The ping of the car’s engine startled him awake. Other than the car showing its age and pissy demeanor, it was silent, absolutely still. Sam jerked upright, more suspicious of every fleeting moment of peace as they came. They didn’t happen often, these times when Lucifer let it rest, that he let himself rest, and afterward the hallucinations always seemed more intense. He couldn’t even enjoy peace anymore.

It was night, that was all he knew. Bright, fluorescent lights from a regional fast food restaurant beamed through the windshield, the smell of grease nauseating as it wafted through the car vents and the hole in the floor. He spotted Dean, grabbing straws and napkins from the condiment bar, wrestled with what looked like enough food to feed an army. Sam didn’t move. His limbs still felt like rubber. He watched Dean, though, almost smiled. It was almost all right, this life of theirs.

“You’re awake,” Dean said after he’d wrestled with the stubborn, rusted door and tossed a bag of burgers and fries at Sam’s lap. “Good. It’s been over twelve fucking hours.”

“Twelve hours,” Sam said.

That had to have been shitty for Dean.

“Feeling okay?”

“Not really. You know. But it’s not too bad.” Sam had learned that the truth was almost always the best option. “Where are we?”

“Pennsylvania. Bobby’s got something. Figure I can lend him an assist while you get your feet back under you.”

Sam nodded. He wasn’t going to argue against recuperation time. If things got bad on a hunt, he did not want to be more of a liability than he already was. Like he’d been in this one.

“Dean,” he said.

“We’re good, Sam. All of it. We’re good.”

“Of course.” Sam furrowed his eyebrows, uncertain what Dean was talking about. “Want to tell me what happened?”

“Eat something first.”

Sam glanced down. The fast food bags were decorated with Halloween images. Stupid jack o’ lanterns and ghosts and pink tulle, a girl, a little… His stomach couldn’t take the food being that close. He shoved the bag back at Dean, who said nothing and started the car, scowled at the way the vehicle bucked and shimmied.

“The girl.” Sam swallowed. “The guy.”

“Okay, if this is how you want to play it. It’s a long story and it can wait, but they’re both okay.” Dean clenched his jaw. “Just like you’re going to be okay, and you’ll be okay faster if you eat something. You look like a fucking character from a Tim Burton movie.”

Sam smiled, turned toward the window and saw his reflection. Dean’s assessment was not far off. Worse, behind him, almost like his head was springing out of Sam’s, was a shadow of Lucifer. His peace was over. He took a deep breath. Dean needed him to be okay, and that was what he had to hold on to. Dean and Bobby and him, that was what he would focus on, just like Dean had said. That, at least, was always going to be solid, real.

Lucifer chuckled, tapped his own imaginary temple, shook his own imaginary head, and mouthed something Sam pretended not to understand.


End file.
